DATA-DRIVEN JOURNALISM

Interview with Roberto Rocha ('98)

Where are you from and do you remember how you came to attend AISB?

I was born in Brazil, but like a good TCK, I grew up in different countries, absorbing the cultures and creating a hybrid of my own. Before Hungary, I was living in the Washington, DC area of the United States.

My father worked for the World Bank and was offered a position at the Budapest office in 1993. I still remember how he sold me, a classic 13-year old at the time, the idea: “They have Burger King and Pizza Hut there, you know. ”

How was your first day?

It felt like a school, with all the kids and buses milling around. But the sprawling Csilleberc campus, with the converted dormitories as classrooms, the hostel reception desk on the main building, and the humble büfé as the cafeteria shared with the local users of the campus was a bit confusing, to say the least.

It was a kind of alienation that, oddly enough, led to close friendships forming quickly. By the end of the first week, I had a best mate.

Did you have a favorite teacher? Which one of the teachers made the biggest impression on your life and why?

Many teachers in my five years left a lasting impression. Mrs. Thompson, the music teacher, and show choir director. Mr. Collea, who inspired the love of science and made me want to be a geneticist. Mr. Wishky, with his Luigi mustache and corny jokes that made math class far more engaging.

But Mr. Charles Newman, English literature teacher, changed who I am as a person.

So many of my values I can trace directly to him. Think of all those classic poignant teacher movies: Dead Poets Society. Mr. Holland’s Opus. To Sir, With Love. That was Mr.Newman.

**Halászbástya for the 15th-year alumni reunion in 2013**

What have you been up to since you graduated from AISB?

I kept going to school, but in Montreal, Canada, but I knew when to stop when I got my BA in English, then another mini Bachelors in Journalism. Since then, I’ve been a newsman. When I hit 30, I took 14 months off work to backpack around the world with my girlfriend at the time. Most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

You really see the complexity of life when you smoke shisha with Hizbollah militants one week in Lebanon, then break bread over Shabbat with a family in Jerusalem the next.

I tried my hand at teaching for one year, as a part-time professor of journalism at the University of Ottawa. I was awful at it. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the work teachers do. But mostly, since I graduated from AISB, I have been drinking a lot of coffee. I learned to love coffee in a Budapest café that I don’t think exists anymore. Mozart Café. It was phenomenally tacky, with overdone rococo flourishes and waitresses in period costumes. But they made a life-changing cappuccino.

**With tribal performers in Papua New Guinea in 2010**

Describe your current job and the path you took to get there.

I’m an investigative data journalist at the Canadian Broadcast Corp., a public broadcaster. I use data science methods and computer code to obtain and analyze troves of data and tell stories with them. It’s actually a happy hybrid of two of my loves: science and journalism. When I found out that I’d make a lousy scientist (I can't spend my days staring into microscopes and pipetting worm DNA, I just can ’t) I became a newsman. When I discovered I could apply stats and computer code for public narratives, I got hooked.

Did you keep in touch with your classmates after you graduated?

I do! Thanks to social media and messaging apps, I keep in touch with old pals across three continents.

What advice do you have for students interested in your field?

Learning doesn’t stop when you get your diploma. In fact, that’s when it really begins.

To learn more about Roberto's work visit robertorocha.info