Deena Zaidi

Data Journalist

Hi!

Current: Editorial Fellow at Axios (2023-2024)

Previous: Data and visual journalist at CTV News, data reporter at The Puget Sound Business Journal, markets contributor at TheStreet.com, financial writer at Seeking Alpha and tech/AI writer at VentureBeat.

Education: MSc. in International Banking and Finance from the University of Durham, England and an MBA in Finance from ICFAI Business School, India.

Working paper: “The role of credit rating agencies in the Eurozone Debt Crisis” — Global Credit Review and University of Singapore.

Deep dive: Before joining Axios (my work at Axios is highlighted in my resume), I worked at CTV News-National in Toronto as a data and visuals journalist, covering a wide range of stories— from hidden COVID-19 fatalities and rising Omicron numbers to immigration backlogs, soaring inflation and climate change. I am comfortable with mapping tools and have created multimedia interactives through ESRI’s GIS interface. These stories included “50 Years Later: Expulsion from Uganda” and “Canadian skies turn lethal for migratory birds.”

Our coverage on immigration backlogs and long wait times gained national attention, pushing authorities to fasten processing times. A special dashboard was also created by the government for applicants to track their application.

Prior to CTV News, I worked for The Puget Sound Business Journal(PSBJ),one of the 44 markets of American City Business Journals, for about 2.5 years.

As a data reporter, I covered special sections for the paper such as the economy of food trucks, the pandemic impact on small businesses, financial aid during the pandemic and supply chain disruption at the time. Our special coverage on the underreported cases at long term care facilities during the pandemic led to a creation of county-level dashboard to track COVID-19 cases on a daily basis.

I also maintained the local database to produce weekly lists of regional businesses along with insights on the findings, which were eventually published as the Annual Book of Lists.

Earlier in my careers, I covered financial topics for The Street in 2013 for 2.5 years, writing extensively on stock markets, earnings reports, Federal Reserve, interest rates, campaign finance, Brexit and personal finance. My bylines can be found in Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and MSN Money.

300+

stories written

10+

years of experience

500k

words written

Tag: artificial intelligence

  • Time to Clean your Audience — Ways to Spot a Bot on Social Media

    Time to Clean your Audience — Ways to Spot a Bot on Social Media

    Twitter is a dynamic world that works in a confined space of 140 characters but the impact it can have on an audience is huge. Just like fake news, fake followers can be detrimental to the image of businesses and even to those individual users who rely heavily on social media marketing. Since Twitter places…

  • AI could provide solutions for climate change

    AI could provide solutions for climate change

    It takes approximately 40 minutes for 82,944 processors on the world’s fastest computer to compute what one percent of our brain calculates in a second. Despite this lag, AI has more promising solutions than humans when it comes to addressing the issue of climate change. Climate change is a serious issue that needs immediate attention across the…

  • Can the Retail Industry go Fully-AI after ‘Amazon Go’?

    Can the Retail Industry go Fully-AI after ‘Amazon Go’?

    In the heart of downtown Seattle lies Amazon Go — a store concept that grabbed headlines after its beta phase opened to the public this year. Its concept could mean that the retail industry could slowly be powered by AI. But the idea already faces competition as tech startups emerge to introduce similar technologies to autonomous retail stores….

  • Wall Street looks towards Silicon Valley for automation

    Wall Street looks towards Silicon Valley for automation

    Wall Street is looking towards Silicon Valley for a more automated environment and a tech-driven approach. A July 2016 report by CB Insights showed that 41 startups may be introducing AI to fintech. Of the many big names, Goldman Sachs remained dominant in backing as many as four companies that use AI in financial technology….