The Art of Insight

Chapter 12A Reporter among Engineers

with Aaron Williams

Figure 12.1: Opening images from “America is more diverse than ever – but still segregated” by Aaron Williams and Armand Emamdjomeh / washingtonpost.com /

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/segregation-us-cities/ / last accessed under April 19, 2023”

You don't work for the people who sign your checks.You work for the people who use the products of your labor.

—Mike Monteiro

“What does a journalist do at Netflix?” I once asked Aaron Williams. Before his current job, Aaron was a graphics reporter at The Washington Post. There he produced some of the most compelling data‐driven journalism I've seen in decades (Figures 12.1 and 12.2.)

He laughed:

Well, when Netflix reached out to me I was as confused as you are. I was like, what the hell? But, I learned that what I do today isn't that different to what I used to do at the Post.

Netflix hired Aaron in 2020. His current title is “data visualization engineer” although, contrary to what I thought before we spoke, his role isn't just designing dashboards or other visual tools to explore and analyze data:

Like any other technology company, Netflix generates a large amount of data that is, on its own, incomprehensible. Think about what we data journalists are really adept at. We take a bunch of information and try to produce a narrative out of it so an ...