Caitlin Ostroff

We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars. An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.

What happens when a bunch of business journalists are asked to try and break an AI vending machine? Well, let's just say the
@wsj.com data journalism team has a new pet fish.

Read, and watch the video. 🐟
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

Dow Jones breaks stories, influences ideas, advances business intelligence and cultural interest, exposes the events that turn markets, the breakthroughs that transform art and drives invention.

The @wsj.com is growing its visual investigations team. Come work with me!
dowjones.jobs/new-york-ny/...

Alas it is not

It's been a minute since I cleaned the same dataset from dozens of states and I forgot how...varied they can be. #PartyLikeADataJournalist

Text of the article, reading: > The Journal’s reporting—based on a review of more than one million FAA and National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports, thousands of pages of documents and research papers and more than 100 interviews—shows that aircraft manufacturers and their airline customers have played down health risks, successfully lobbied against safety measures, and made cost-saving changes that increased the risks to crew and passengers. > The fumes—sometimes described as smelling of “wet dog,” “Cheetos” or “nail polish”—have led to emergency landings, sickened passengers and affected pilots’ vision and reaction times midflight, according to official reports. > Most odors in aircraft aren’t toxic, and neither are all vapors. The effects are often fleeting, mild or present no symptoms. > But they can also be longer-lasting and severe, according to doctors, medical records and affected crew members.

Toxic fumes are leaking Into airplanes, sickening crews and passengers. The problem is getting worse and not much is being done about it.

From Ben Katz, me, and @andrewtangel.bsky.social for @wsj.com.

🔓 www.wsj.com/business/air...

Thank you for reading

An excerpt from the article: Scientists are removing words like “diverse” and “disparities” from hundreds of federal grant renewals to avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. At least 600 research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health have been modified in the fiscal year starting in October to remove terms associated with diversity, equity and inclusion, the Journal analysis found. Nearly all of those projects were multiyear grants that had already been approved but were up for routine annual reviews. The modified grants were worth $480 million this cycle. The most frequently deleted term was “diverse,” removed in 300 instances, followed by “underrepresented.” In some cases, scientists are yanking words that aren’t DEI-related at all, but could be flagged as such, including references to “discrimination” of antibodies in transplant patients. Other changes researchers are making are more substantive, shifting the scope of projects. Scientists caution that research on medical issues affecting minority communities is being de-emphasized. Some grants up for routine yearly renewals sat in limbo until scientists submitted the revisions. Funding delays at times led to layoffs and disrupted ongoing research.

Over @wsj.com, my colleagues Sara Randazzo, @ceostroff.bsky.social, and Shane Shifflett have a deep, fascinating look at how researchers are amending grant language to keep federal funding and avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s push against "DEI." www.wsj.com/health/scien...

How the Epstein Scandal Fractured Trump’s Relationship With MAGA A Wall Street Journal analysis of thousands of podcast transcripts shows the conservative conversation on Epstein has swelled in recent weeks.

Epstein was discussed by prominent right-wing podcasters in more than 3,000 episodes across nearly 125 podcasts this year, a @wsj.com analysis found. Those conversations grew more than eightfold in the last 3 weeks despite Trump’s admonishment that MAGA drop the issue.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Thank you for reading!

Congrats!

Meta fires 20 employees for leaking The company announced the firings after a string of leaks about CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s internal comments.

With Meta out there banging on the "snitches get stitches" drum, seemed like a good time to lay out my best guidance for tech industry employees who feel a need to speak up. Below are a few notes:

www.theverge.com/labor/621059...

Join IRE now and get a discount on digital security services - Investigative Reporters & Editors Join or renew your IRE membership by April 28, 2025 to receive a 50% discounted subscription to DeleteMe services.

IRE is offering a new member benefit for our 50th anniversary and spring member drive!

Join or renew your membership by April 28 to receive a 50% discounted subscription to DeleteMe.

The service works to remove personal data online and ensure digital safety. www.ire.org/discount-on-...

Exclusive | Trump Family Has Held Deal Talks With Binance Following Crypto Exchange’s Guilty Plea The discussions for a stake in Binance’s U.S. arm come as founder Changpeng Zhao has pushed for the administration to pardon him for his own 2023 guilty plea.

Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter www.wsj.com/finance/curr... by @ceostroff.bsky.social et al

High praise from you ❤️🙏

Slides to our session are available at bit.ly/nicar25-cryptocurrency #NICAR25

NICAR 2025 schedule | March 6-9, 2025 | Minneapolis Welcome to the #NICAR25 conference schedule!

Have questions about crypto, why it's suddenly in the news and how to track it using data? @jeremybmerrill.com and I have (at least some) answers. Come to our panel at 2:15! #NICAR25
schedules.ire.org/nicar-2025/i...

The Journal is hiring for a data reporter. Come work with me!
wsj.jobs/new-york-ny/...

While DOGE hasn’t offered details about all of the stated savings, it has posted a list of more than 1,100 canceled contracts to its website. As of Friday, it said the savings from these contracts amounted to about $7 billion. The Journal analysis projects the actual savings could be closer to $2.6 billion over the next year if spending levels remained constant—and about 2% of the funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI. Research-focused agencies were among the top targets for cuts, including the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, where DOGE terminated contracts costing the government more than $900 million last year. DOGE terminated more than 60 Health and Human Services contracts including a clinical evaluation of an Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury drug and a study of smokers with chronic lung disease. DOGE described these as “administrative expenses.”

My colleagues, @ceostroff.bsky.social, Shane Shifflett, and James Benedict have a fantastic look at DOGE's savings claims: "A WSJ analysis of government data found that many claims of savings were overstated and ‘woke’ cuts were only a tiny fraction of the total." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New year, new @journalismmentors.bsky.social website. @adrianalacy.com and I revamped our *free* journalism mentorship platform for students, young professionals, pros, etc.

Want a mentor? journalismmentors.com/media-mentors/
Want to be a mentor?
adrianalacyconsulting.typeform.com/to/ULcCOEqv?...

New year, new @journalismmentors.bsky.social website. @adrianalacy.com and I revamped our *free* journalism mentorship platform for students, young professionals, pros, etc.

Want a mentor? journalismmentors.com/media-mentors/
Want to be a mentor?
adrianalacyconsulting.typeform.com/to/ULcCOEqv?...

To support students, career-switchers and others who want to add SQL to their data analysis skillsets in 2025, I'm providing three free copies of my book, "Practical SQL." To enter a drawing for one of the free copies, please provide all the information below!

forms.gle/ge4ySHjHZbZp...

CoinDesk Dismisses Top Editors After Story Draws Crypto Executive’s Ire The article, since removed, featured a key CoinDesk sponsor and a $6 million banana.

The article, since removed, featured a key CoinDesk sponsor and a $6 million banana. w/Justin Baer and Vicky Huang
www.wsj.com/finance/coin...

Evan’s name is back in the @wsj.com in the exact spot it should be—a byline.

w/Drew Hinshaw, Joe Parkinson and Thomas Grove
www.wsj.com/world/russia...

UnitedHealth Murder Suspect Fights Extradition to New York Judge denies bail for Luigi Mangione, who was caught in Pennsylvania after evading police for days.

In 2019, Mangione uploaded handwritten notes to his Goodreads account (since made private) that said he had spondylolisthesis, a condition when one of the bones in the spine moves and puts pressure on the vertebra below, causing back pain.

My latest
www.wsj.com/us-news/luig...

I just refilled the jar with fresh Reese's earlier, too.

But seriously the WSJ data team is great. Happy to answer questions about The Journal, the team, etc.

FBI renewing call for info that could lead to the safe return of Austin Tice "given recent events in Syria"

"We are still offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that leads to Austin’s safe return" per statement

Tice was kidnapped in Damascus in August 2012

Insurers Collected Billions From Medicare for Veterans Who Cost Them Almost Nothing Taxpayers paid for their care at the VA—and for Medicare Advantage coverage that many didn’t use. ‘I don’t think I’ve used my Medicare in years,’ said one Air Force veteran.

MEDICARE ADVANTAGE: Private insurers collected billions for veterans' healthcare, while the VA delivered it, by @mcgint.bsky.social and crew. www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Grateful for so much this year but at the top of my list: Evan Gershkovich is free.

Thank you to the many who worked to make it happen this year.

Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community I did not expect this! > [...] we are announcing today the general availability of a foundational open data set, Foursquare Open Source Places ("FSQ OS Places"). This base layer …

Foursquare just open sourced their 100 million place point of interest dataset! Some notes on poking around with it using DuckDB (it's Parquet files on S3) simonwillison.net/2024/Nov/20/...

Anyone Can Buy Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany More than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany—and the Pentagon is powerless to stop it.

“Our investigation uncovered 38,474 location signals from up to 189 devices inside Büchel Air Base, a high-security German installation where as many as 15 US nuclear weapons are reportedly stored in underground bunkers.” By @dell.bsky.social @dmehro.bsky.social

www.wired.com/story/phone-...