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joemurph.bsky.social
Joe Murphy
@joemurph.bsky.social
4.7K followers 1.9K following 520 posts
Data editor @NBCNews.com, @NBCguild.bsky.social strong, Oregonian born & raised, lives in NYC (Gowanus, Brooklyn). Formerly: New York Daily News, Denver Post, Medill.

Into dataviz, spreadsheets, accessibility, coding.

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joemurph.bsky.social
International student enrollment rates at American colleges and universities fell sharply this year, driven by visa application issues as prospective students are caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

New from Melinda Yao for @NBCNews.com:
www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...
This chart shows the number of new international students enrolled in U.S. higher ed each year since 2015, when 300,000 students enrolled. That was the most of any year. Generally, numbers are between 260,000 and 300,000 each year, with exceptions for the first year of the pandemic (145,000) and 2025, when an estimated 230,000 students enrolled, based on preliminary figures.
November 17, 2025 at 9:26 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Never seen a seven-set Venn diagram before. moebio.com/research/sev...
A screenshot of the source web page, with a dominant visual of a mandala-like Venn diagram with many colors and shapes swirling around in an almost ordered manner. The page is titled "7 sets Venn Diagram" and has this text on it: "Out of this seven sets Venn Diagram (who's the author?) I created my own isomorphic version (meaning that I kept the same topology) trying to balance surface areas, so each piece has a similar visual importance."
November 9, 2025 at 12:27 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Halloween candy is getting expensive, and it's not just chocolate driving up prices, which have increased in the past five years at more than triple the rate of inflation. Melinda Yao for @NBCNews.com: www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...
Atop this bar chart is the text "The average price of a bag of Halloween candy increased from about $9 to more than $16 in five years, an increase more than triple the rate of inflation." This chart compares the average price of a bag of Halloween candy (in dollars) each year from 2020 to 2025, showing actual prices and inflation-adjusted prices. In 2020, both prices were $9.19. In 2021, the inflation-adjusted price was $9.69, while the actual price was $9.91. In 2025, the inflation-adjusted price is $11.47 — a 25% increase — and the actual price reaches $16.39 — a 78% increase. The chart shows that while inflation-adjusted prices increase gradually, actual prices rise much faster.
October 29, 2025 at 6:04 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Built this interactive income tax calculator that measures the difference in what you’ll pay on 2026 income vs. what you’ll pay on 2025 income: www.nbcnews.com/business/tax...
A screenshot of a rudimentary tax calculator, shown for someone with a yearly pre-tax income of $83,730 (which is the latest U.S. median household income). For that income, federal income taxes in 2026 would cost someone filing as an individual $9,590 (down $279 from the year before), and would cost a married couple filing jointly $5,687 (down $103 from the year before). The standard deduction is factored into this calculation.
October 21, 2025 at 6:29 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
“Nvidia plans to invest in OpenAI, which is buying cloud computing from Oracle, which is buying chips from Nvidia, which has a stake in CoreWeave, which is providing artificial intelligence infrastructure to OpenAI.” #dataViz www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
This chart shows which tech and AI companies are funding each other – many fund one company, which then funds another, which then funds the first one. Companies include OpenAi, Nvidia, Oracle, Meta.
October 7, 2025 at 2:31 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
A digital drawing of squares, mostly, grey white black blue and red, some textured, some overlapping, some just skinny lil' rectangles. Two larger red rectangles are top and center, overlapping (or are they) shapes surround.
October 5, 2025 at 6:22 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Not all #dataviz has to be in chart form – this presentation of what's happened during the government shutdown and what's to come is mostly HTML & CSS, with a little bit of SVG.

www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...
Day 1 Oct. 1 The federal government shuts down. National park visitor centers close. Department of Veterans Affairs regional offices close. Social Security benefit verifications are suspended. Certain small-business loan approvals are now paused. Bureau of Labor Statistics ceases to release economic and employment data. Day 3 Oct. 3 By the end of the day, the current shutdown will have lasted longer than seven previous government shutdowns. The Senate will revote on stopgap funding measures that have previously failed.
October 2, 2025 at 9:03 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
A huge, monthslong data investigation from @NBCNews.com into childhood vaccination rates finds immunizations declining significantly. I was part of the dozens of journalists working on this story, which will be part of tonight’s NBC Nightly News broadcast. www.nbcnews.com/specials/vac...
This map, mostly a county map, shows the percentage of mostly kindergarten-age children who are vaccinated with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. A look at the map shows vaccination rates are lowest in New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Atop the map is the text "NBC News collected vaccination data from each state, analyzed it, and found 3 out of 4 counties and jurisdictions have reported declines in vaccination rates since 2019."
September 15, 2025 at 9:15 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Just introduced the nine-year-old to the band Oneida via their epic track Sheets of Easter (lyrics below), she made it through eight minutes of the song before bailing.
You've got to look into the LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT (repeat forever)
September 14, 2025 at 11:31 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
The Josh-focused baby name analysis showed up in @walthickey.bsky.social’s excellent Numlock newsletter today:
The Joshes of the world have never been this powerful, a new analysis found. The number of baby boys named Josh or Joshua was essentially nil through 1970. However, its popularity sharply increased, accounting for 1.09 percent of all newborns in 1981, peaking at 1.13 percent in 1985 and then falling off after 1989 to just 0.15 percent of newborns named Josht today. It was a great run — from 1979 to 2009, it was in the top 10 baby boy names — and this demographic wave of Joshes is cresting. This decade of hegemony means that today, your vanguard Josh is in their 40s to 50s, an age seen among six percent of U.S. governors.
August 26, 2025 at 1:16 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
I've asked a lot of people how many immigrants they think live here. Most have no idea it’s 50-plus million. This figure includes authorized and unauthorized immigrants — the U.S., as of the latest U.N. data, is the top destination for immigrants in the world. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
This chart shows the U.S. foreign-born population by immigration status, as of 2023 when there were 51.8 million immigrants. Of those, there were 37.8 million lawful immigrants: 23.8 million naturalized citizens, 11.9 million lawful permanent residents, and 2.1 million temporary lawful residents. Of the 14 million unauthorized immigrants, there were 6 million with some protection and 8 million with no protection.
August 23, 2025 at 1:50 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Gotta say, it's a bummer that @TheCity.nyc is nowhere to be seen at the top of the page on searches for the potato chip bribery story. C'mon Google.
A screenshot of Google's search results for potato chip bribery, which returns links from USA Today, Inquirer.com, The Daily Beast, The Cut and La Voice of New York... but not the news organization that landed the story.
August 22, 2025 at 11:25 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
I love making new connections on LinkedIn
A screenshot of a linkedin message from me: "JOCELYN THERE ARE FEW RULES I HAVE IN LIFE BUT MY FAVORITE ONE IS THE ONE WHERE I ALL-CAPS MESSAGE NEW CONNECTIONS ON LINKED IN, IT'S TRULY A JOY, IT BRINGS LIGHT TO THE TIME I SPEND ON THIS PLATFORM, THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SHARE THAT LIGHT WITH YOU. -JOE"
August 10, 2025 at 11:59 AM
joemurph.bsky.social
This is the microwave in the place we’re renting this month, this is the actual button label on the machine, love it, never seen anything like it.
A photo of a microwave A closer in photo of the microwave’s buttons Closer in still on the microwave’s buttons Close-in shot of the microwave button, it’s labelled "CHAOS DEFROST"
August 4, 2025 at 12:09 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Added a couple charts to my journal’s monthly dashboard:
Two charts: One, a beeswarm chart showing the number and color of the 99 shirts I wore in May, per day; two, a bar chart showing the total number shirts in each color I wore. White and green shirts topped the list, followed by yellow, red, black, blue and then grey.
June 8, 2025 at 10:21 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
An abstract digital drawing, turquoise and blue-grey splotches splotched all over the place.
June 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
There’s space weather in the skies tonight and tomorrow, with the northern lights / aurora borealis likely coming into view for a good chunk of the U.S., which means another chance to unearth this excellent 2023 chart we did on the topic (from this story www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic... ) #dataViz
An illustration that shows how northern lights are created. The sun, during coronal mass ejections, emits particles that are carried outward by solar wind. Most of those particles are deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field. Some make it through the field and get trapped; those particles find escape where the magnetic field is weakest at the North Pole and South Pole. When the escaped particles collide with the upper atmosphere, auroral lights are created. Atop the diagram is the text “How the northern lights work: The answer is blowing in the solar wind.”
June 1, 2025 at 8:25 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Pew Research ( @pewresearch.org ) goes deep on data on the people in the U.S. who consult tarot cards / astrology / fortune tellers: www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...
This bar chart shows the percentage of U.S. adults and subgroups who believe in astrology. Twenty-seven percent of adults do, 43% of women ages 18-49 do, 27% of women 50 and older do, 20% of men ages 18-49 do, and 16% of men 50 and older do.
May 24, 2025 at 1:03 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
NBC News’ measles tracker now includes a table of case counts, as well as the number of those cases that were reported in the previous four weeks.

www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...
A screenshot of a table of reported measles cases in the U.S. and cases in the past four weeks. United States 1,023 cases, 269 in the past four weeks Texas 732 cases, 164 in the past four weeks Kansas 48 cases, 16 in the past four weeks Ohio 34 cases, 14 in the past four weeks North Dakota 11 cases, 11 in the past four weeks Illinois 8 cases, 8 in the past four weeks Montana 8 cases, 8 in the past four weeks New Mexico 71 cases, 8 in the past four weeks Pennsylvania 13 cases, 6 in the past four weeks Oklahoma 14 cases, 5 in the past four weeks.
May 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
just got to write another message on LinkedIn, thank god
(in all capital letters) Frank hello have I told you about one of my joys in life? It's writing introduction messages on linkedin in all-caps. This brings me so much joy. Thank you for being a part of it.
April 29, 2025 at 12:44 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
In Google Sheets I just put an XLOOKUP inside an XLOOKUP to get the numbers I needed in to pull a bunch of pivot tables together in a complex data munging situation, never done that before...
A screenshot of part of the Google Sheets cell calculation: "=IFNA(XLOOKUP(TO_TEXT(XLOOKUP"
April 28, 2025 at 3:17 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Up to five prints on my Rose Wong wall. You don't want to see the math that went into getting these pieces as close to aligned as they are.
Five framed prints from Rose Wong’s The Garden, spaced almost evenly, showing a women entering a garden at night, then two women in a garden, then a geometric garden, then a 360° flower bed at night, then a gridded panel of ever-increasing flowers.
April 26, 2025 at 5:35 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Walt Hickey, who's now on BlueSky (@walthickey.bsky.social), gave a lil' write-up for the conclave data (www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...) in his excellent Numlock newsletter today.
Following the demise of Pope Francis, the curia of the Roman Catholic Church will soon convene in Rome to select a new Pope, in an event known as a conclave. Since 1900, the longest conclave has taken 5 days, with the median event taking a reasonable 3 days. That said, the recent performance is a somewhat new trick; from 1600 to 1900, the average conclave went on for about 2 months, with the 1740 conclave that put Benedict XIV on the Chair of Saint Peter running 182 days.
April 24, 2025 at 1:17 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
Shoutout @mmvty.bsky.social, whose second book, Poetry's Data, officially lands today from @princetonupress.bsky.social ( press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... ). So much work went into this! Can't wait to finish it.
The book Poetry's Data: Digital humanities and the history of prosody, by Meredith Martin.
April 22, 2025 at 1:03 PM
joemurph.bsky.social
NBC News (@nbcnews.com) with new reporting and data on lagging deportation numbers: www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

Also with a new dashboard tracking ICE detentions, how many of those detainees have criminal convictions, and attempted border crossings: www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...
Migrants in ICE detention: 47,892 30.0% with criminal convictions 21.9% with pending criminal charges 48.1% listed as "other immigration violator" 10.9% fast-tracked for deportation
April 15, 2025 at 5:57 PM