Hello. My name is Ben Welsh. I’m a native Iowan living in Los Angeles.
I am a reporter, albeit an unconventional one. I specialize in what is called computer-assisted reporting. Journalists in the past were often hack novelists. I'm a hack computer programmer. I use computers to collect, organize, analyze and present large amounts of information.
I work at the Los Angeles Times, a daily newspaper and 24-hour website based in Southern California. Before working at The Times, I worked on investigative projects at The Center for Public Integrity, helped produce long-form documentaries for cable channels like CNN, and pitched in on some television and newspaper reporting.
I earned a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism — where I worked at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR). I received my undergraduate training at DePaul University in Chicago.
I am also the editor and publisher of PastPages, an archive dedicated to the preservation of online news.
Elsewhere on the site you can find samples of my programming work and my news clips.
