Deena Zaidi


Data Journalist

Hi!

A data journalist with over 10 years of writing and reporting experience. I’ve had the pleasure of working for a local news paper in Seattle for about 2.5 years, after which I worked as a data visual journalist around two years in a leading broadcast news room in Canada.

I’ve written a wide range of stories— from hidden COVID-19 fatalities and rising Omicron numbers to immigration backlogs to soaring inflation and real estate markets. 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 Urban Skies Turn Lethal for Migratory Birds“.

Prior to CTVNews, I wrote data-driven stories for, Seattle’s Puget Sound Business Journal (PSBJ)—one of the 44 markets of American City Business Journals. I also maintained the database for the local market which were published as weekly lists. The role involved fact-checking and in-depth research through surveys and phone calls. These lists ranked regional businesses on different metrics and were eventually compiled into the Annual Book of Lists.

Early in my career, I wrote extensively for various digital publications such as TheStreet.com, VentureBeat, Seeking Alpha, BuzzFeed, and Truthout with bylines in Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and MSN Money. I’ve authored a working paper on “The role of credit rating agencies in the Eurozone debt crisis” for Global Credit Review at the University of Singapore.

As a data journalist, I am always keen to look at the investigative side of stories where data is fundamental. My strength lies in data-driven stories that look beyond the numbers published in public records. I have solid experience in data analytics, with experience in mapping and creating interactive visuals.

I have an MSc. in International Banking and Finance from the University of Durham, England, and an MBA in Finance from ICFAI Business School, India. I hold a certificate in Data Analytics from Northeastern University and have been a part of a data bootcamp hosted by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. (IRE) in Seattle.

Feel free to browse through my portfolio.

stories written

years of experience

words written

Tag: machine learning

  • 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…

  • Machine Learning uses facial expressions to detect suicidal behavior

    Machine Learning uses facial expressions to detect suicidal behavior

    Suicide is extremely difficult to predict, especially in depressed individuals. But AI- algorithms could soon help doctors differentiate between patients who are depressed and those who are suicidal. Joseph Franklin, Ph.D. from Harvard University and author of a suicide research published by the American Psychological Association said, a suicide expert who conducted an in-depth assessment…

  • AI intervenes to bring down suicide rates

    AI intervenes to bring down suicide rates

    While a reliable method to accurately identify suicidal patients is missing from medical literature, researchers at universities are continually striving for AI-solutions to predict and prevent suicidal attempts. Suicide is cited as the 10th leading cause of death and is one of three leading causes on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and…