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In my opinion, prostitution in the U.S. should be legal.*Let me first start by issuing the following disclaimer:I have never been with a prostitute. If legalized, I would not visit a prostitute. I gain nothing by writing this. I am not affiliated with any organization or group that advocates for prostitution.I understand that many women can be offended by this so I ask you to please proceed with an open mind before you kill me with comments below regarding the ills of human trafficking or the morality of it all. First, four background points:A short history of prostitution[1] in ancient Greece and the U.S.The Federal government has left the legality of prostitution to the individual states to decide if it should be legal or not within their individual borders.The state government of Nevada is the only state in the U.S. that has legal prostitution and has left the decision of legalization to each individual county (In Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, it is illegal) rather than a state decision of where and where it is not legal.A review of any Nevada county law or ordinance regarding prostitution will show strict statutes that must be followed. It is a regulated industry. One such statute is that street prostitution is illegal and that prostitution must only take place in a controlled environment called a brothel and not in a residential neighborhood, and not near a school.All workers in a brothel must be registered with the county.All brothels must be licensed.All workers must get tested for STDs and HIV once a week.Legalization significantly reduces human trafficking and street walkers.Legalization significantly reduces underage prostitutionLegalization significantly reduces forced prostitution.Legalization may make it easier for police to find underage and human trafficking (#7–9 above). The legalized brothels are controlled and works to help get women off the street and in a safe environment. Many more streetwalkers will be off the street resulting in fewer ad’s for a “date.” Police may have an easier time and more success in finding human trafficking, underage, and forced prostitution.Police man power for sex crimes and task forces can be reduced due to fewer street walkers, pimps, and John’s to arrest, allowing the police to redirect more availability to more serious crimes .The courts will have fewer prostitution cases to process resulting in other cases being heard and resolved more quickly.Public defenders will have a lighter case load allowing them to spend more time on other, more serious defendants.Legalization significantly reduces men having to be concerned about arrest and having their lives and reputations destroyed.Men (customers) will be safer. No more driving to the “bad” part of town, risking getting robbed, assaulted, or ripped off by a worker.Studies that compare indoor prostitutes (as opposed to street walkers) with non-prostitutes find that they have similar levels of self-esteem, physical health, and mental health. Many indoor prostitutes even report a rise in self-esteem after they begin their indoor work (Weitzer, 2012).Kingley Davis, theorized that prostitution lowers the divorce rate. He reasoned that many married men are unhappy with their sex life with their wives. If they do not think this situation can improve, some men start an affair with another woman and may fall in love with that woman, threatening these men’s marriages. (Kingsley Davis was was an internationally recognized American sociologist identified by the American Philosophical Society as one of the most outstanding social scientists of the twentieth century.)Legalization significantly reduces the acts occurring in seedy motels and the activity that is seen around those neighborhoods.Legalization significantly reduces drug use. A brothel is a controlled environment where no such activity is tolerated.Legalization significantly reduces any guilt or embarrassment by either of the two parties involved.It creates a safe environment for the workers.All brothels are regulated and most follow strict code adherenceAll prostitutes must be tested for STD, HIV, etc once a week (Nevada has not recorded a single case of HIV in a brothel since legalizing Prostitution.)Condoms must be used. There is no option.The women can always choose to not participate with a customer if she does not want to do what the customer wants to do. The customer can choose another partner.All prices of all sex acts are clearly posted and/or menu’s are provided. No negotiations.Brothels provide a clean & safe environment for all parties involved.Creates a new source of tax revenue.“Let’s assume that 50 million acts of prostitution occur annually in the United States (it is closer to 70 million), and that each of these acts costs an average $30. Putting these numbers together, prostitutes receive $1.5 billion annually in income. If they paid about one-third of this amount (admittedly a rough estimate) in payroll taxes, the revenue of state and federal governments would increase by $500 million.” (resource)Removes “Red Light Districts” and moves everything into a controlled environment.Prostitution was legal in the U.S. up until 100 years ago (1920) when it became illegal due to the religious moral reasons. Are we still making laws based on religious reasons?Prostitution has long been illegal due to moral reasons. To that point consider this:Who is to say what is and is not moral in this day and age? Homosexuality, black/white relationships, and sodomy were all once illegal.Sodomy laws in the United States, were inherited from British criminal laws with roots in the Christian religion. Christian religion no longer dictates U.S. law and is a violation of separation of church and state.If we follow British rule of law (which is what U.S laws are based upon), prostitution is legal. Therefore, American law should follow, right? (I personally do not agree on this point.) There are certain restrictions however.In the case, Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the U.S. Supreme court, in a 6–3 decision, struck down Texas State law (and therefore 13 other states) that made Sodomy illegal between consenting adults. This is significant because Lawrence v Texas overruled a previous Supreme Court decision, Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 that found a Georgia statute banning sodomy, was valid because the Constitution did not apply to constitutional protection of sexual privacy. By reversing the 1986 decision, the Court ruled that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment.Legalizing Prostitution would give the workers a right to unionize and be entitled to certain protections.The spread of STD’s and HIV could be significantly reduced (condom use).Worker injury (whatever that might be) would be covered under OSHA.Workers could possible be entitled to benefits such as sick time, paid time off, and even vacation and retirement planning.Workers would receive health benefits.Strip Clubs are legal and the activity in these clubs comes very close to a brothel. Why is it permissible to watch a woman (of her own free will) remove all her clothing in public and dance naked for money but she cannot, of her own free will, have human contact of her own free will.Two (or more) consenting adults, agree to have sex with each other, and get paid to have sex with each other. That’s prostitution, right? No, there is a loophole. XXX rated movies. These actors get paid to have sex but because they are being filmed for commercial purposes and claim it as an art form, then that’s ok, They are not breaking the law. Hmmm…Roe v. Wade. This might be a stretch but Roe v Wade gives a woman the right to choose what happens to her body and focuses on reproductive rights. It mentions personal autonomy. Personal autonomy is a key provision here. Can such an argument be referenced for what a woman decides to do with her body, such as participating in prostitution? (For more on personal autonomy, see Part IV of this John Marshall Law Review article. See also this Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository article.)“Corruption would be rampant.” This is a baseless statement. Lets be realistic. There is corruption with every single job on the planet including, Police, Politicians, Priests (and other religions), Judges, teachers, social workers, Stock Market (money managers), etc. Are all priests, police, or teachers bad? Of course not. The majority of all workers and professionals are good, honest, hardworking people. Just because a woman is a prostitute does not make her a bad person. I cannot say why a woman would want or need to do this sort of work, but the reason is not for any of us to judgeA U.N. report found "very low" rates of sexually transmitted infections among the sex workers of New Zealand, a country whose total decriminalization of prostitution many advocates consider to be the gold standard in sex work policy. NZ - it's a great place to be a prostituteFormer US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders thinks it makes no sense to ban prostitution simply because it objectifies women: “Why are we so upset about sex workers selling sexual acts to consenting adults?” she asks. “We say that they are selling their bodies, but how different is that from what athletes do? They’re selling their bodies. Models? They’re selling their bodies. Actors? They’re selling their bodies.”Recently, in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, an appeals judge asked, why it should be “illegal to sell something that’s legal to give away?” Other judges have said the 14th amendment and Lawrence v. Texas does not apply to Prostitution because that is not what those who wrote the 14th amendment nor the Supreme Court Justices had in mind. Really? How is that known? The ruling references Personal Autonomy.Prostitution can be a controlled and regulated industry. Without regulations, we get what we have today….street walkers, drug addicts, abused women etc. This profession is known as the worlds oldest profession. It’s not, nor will it ever, go away. It was completely legal in all the U.S. until only 1920.We can waste tax payer money by continuing sting operations, arresting offenders who will only turn around and go right back to the street after posting bond or, we can provide a safe and regulated place for all involved and redirect police resources to truly hurtful and dangerous crimes.I cannot imagine anyone who would rather drive to a seedy part of town, risk arrest, getting robbed, contracting an STD, and embarrassment by arrest, versus going to a place that does not hide the truth and provides safety for all parties.I’m not an attorney or an advocate, but in my eyes, the only reasons prostitution is illegal is because nobody is willing to write the rules and because of those who define morality. Bt who defines morality? Does your morality have to be my morality? It is not the same thing to all people. I guess that falls to the court system…the same court that once outlawed sodomy, sex between two males, and black/white sex.In my opinion, the decision to have sex between two consenting adults, whether it be for money, food, or Winnie the Pooh stickers, is and should be, between the adults involved. There needs to be, like all other legal matters, rules and restrictions put into place to protect everyone. And no need to reinvent the wheel. We can use New Zealand, Amsterdam, and Nevada as the blueprint for policy. All objections such as STD’s, HIV, corruption, exploitation, etc, are really just from people who object to the activity and have no desire to make it legal and they are absolutely entitled to their opinion, but I don’t care for alcohol and there are some religions that forbid drinking it, but that does not mean we should outlaw alcohol due to moral and religious beliefs? We already tried that in the U.S. and it failed miserably, in part because all kinds of mobs and corruption materialized. Al Capone made his living from running illegal moonshine and secret “speakeasy’s.” Those speakeasy’s and running moonshine (all the illegal activity) vanished right after alcohol was legalized again.Human nature is such that if we want something bad enough, we will find a way to get it. That is why there is and has always been prostitution. We’ve legalized marijuana, alcohol, same sex marriage, abortions, segregation, sodomy, and so many other “once illegal” activities. The illegal fixation on prostitution pales in comparison to the benefits for all parties involved including the workers, the customers, the tax payers, the government, and the public at large.(Reed Saxon/AP)EDIT: The word. “Eliminates” used in my opinion are too definitive as Sean Patrick points out in his comment below. I agree. I am changing the word to “reduces.” Also, I added a TON more points to and links. My apologies to the first 18K readers who did not read this revised version that has more clarity.Edit #2:Human Trafficking has become a very hot topic lately which has created many non-profit organizations to help those who are involuntarily forced into being a “sex slave” with little hope of escape. I fully support & agree with such organizations to the point that modern day slavery of any type should not and can not be tolerated anywhere, in any country. While these organizations are doing a terrific service by building awareness of a problem that needs addressing, I do not agree with everything they advocate, specifically their attempt to keep prostitution illegal and that it is bad for everyone everywhere. There is research, commissioned by Human Trafficking groups, that show even legalized prostitution in Nevada is detrimental and is known to have forced labor and so I want to address that concern, that legalizing will not put an end to human trafficking and actually increases human trafficking (this is what some research reporting has concluded).First, everyone should always be wary of any research commissioned by groups that want to prove their point as valid. It almost goes without saying that these groups would bury the report if the research showed the opposite of what they theorize and want others to read.Second, brothels are regulated in Nevada and should be heavily regulated. Las Vegas does a pretty good job of regulating anyone working in a gaming environment by requiring every worker to obtain and carry a “Sheriff’s card” (also called a Work Card.)This card can only be obtained by a person who is sponsored by an employer who has agreed to hire them. You cannot obtain a card before being employed, only after being offered a job by an employer. This does not completely stop problems but certainly makes things more difficult for the illegal activity to occur. In fact, Las Vegas already requires that those working in brothels have such a card even though prostitution is illegal in Clark County (where Las Vegas is located.)As you can see from the following sample, the questions are specific and more detailed questions can be added including a private, in-person interview with a deputy or agent who can ask the worker specific questions such as “Are you being forced into this work?” “Do you need help with an addiction?” “Why have you chosen to do this work?” “Has anyone threatened your safety if you do not obtain this card or work in the profession?” The workers can be required to renew the cards annually with an interview.Here is a sample application for a Sheriff’s card.https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/Documents/SampleWorkCardApplication.pdfWith proper regulations, many concerns are addressed and for those who continue to participate in trafficking, pimping and smuggling of humans, the penalties should be made more severe and as severe as possible.————————————————————————-Footnotes and Further Reading that might apply to this opinion:Federal MaterialSearch U.S. Supreme Court DecisionsSearch U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals DecisionsSearch LII Preview/ Analyses of Supreme Court Cases1st Amendment to U.S. Constitution4th and 5th Amendments to U.S. Constitution14th Amendment to U.S. ConstitutionSearch the Annotated Constitution of the United StatesU.S. Supreme Court: Historic Right of Privacy-Personal Autonomy DecisionsGriswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969)Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1973)Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977)Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)Lawrence v. Texas(2003)State Judicial DecisionsN.Y. Court of Appeals:Commentary from liibulletin-nySearch N.Y. Court of Appeals DecisionsAppellate Decisions from Other StatesOther ReferencesGood Starting Point, including a short history of Prostitution and the following references:Turkington & Allen-Castellitto Privacy Law: Cases & Materials, West Group (2002)Barry, K. (1996). The prostitution of sexuality. New York, NY: New York University Press.Brewer, D. D., Potterat, J. J., Garrett, S. B., Muth, S. Q., John M. Roberts, J., Kasprzyk, D., et al. (2000). Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 12385–12388.Bullough, V. L., & Bullough, B. (1977). Sin, sickness, and sanity: A history of sexual attitudes. New York, NY: New American Library.Bullough, V. L., & Bullough, B. (1987). Women and prostitution: A social history. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.Clinard, M. B., & Meier, R. F. (2011). Sociology of deviant behavior (14th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.Davis, K. (1937). The sociology of prostitution. American Sociological Review, 2, 744–755.Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2011). Crime in the United States, 2010. Washington, DC: Author.McCaslin, J. (1999, October 13). Vaginal politics. Washington Times, p. A8.Meier, R. F., & Geis, G. (2007). Criminal justice and moral issues. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Ordway, R. (1995, May 26). Relaxation spas perplex officials. The Bangor Daily News, p. 1.Ringdal, N. J. (2004). Love for sale: A world history of prostitution (R. Daly, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove Press.Rosen, R. (1983). The lost sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Stanford, S. (1966). The lady of the house. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam.Weitzer, R. (2009). Sociology of sex work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(0360-0572, 0360-0572), 213–234.Weitzer, R. (2011). Legalizing prostitution: From illicit vice to lawful business. New York, NY: New York University Press.Weitzer, R. (2012). Prostitution: Facts and fictions. In D. Hartmann & C. Uggen (Eds.), The Contexts reader (pp. 223–230). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.Footnotes[1] Social Problems: Continuity and Change

The question is “Should New York Stuyvesant School be more diverse (only 7 of 895 freshmen in 2019 were black)?” The answer to the general question is that Stuyvesant High School already has a very diverse student population. Accordingly, Stuyvesant’s student population is composed of students whose families have emigrated from at least 20 Asian countries and which compose about 70% of the student body. For many of these students English was learned as a second language. Also, around 45% of current students qualify, on the basis of low family income for free or reduced-price lunches. Each of those Asian countries has a distinct culture and language (s). Other students are White and/or Hispanic (which covers many countries). There are next to no African American students at Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant High School is one of nine of the city’s specialized high schools. Eight of these schools use the “Specialized High School Admissions Test” (SHSAT) either as the sole criteria for admission or in conjunction with other criteria which are subjective. Stuyvesant uses the SHSAT as its only criterion for admission. The higher a candidate for admission to Stuyvesant scores on the SHSAT the greater the chance admission. The academic specialization of Stuyvesant High School is math and science.Hence, the real question is, “Should Stuyvesant High School admit more African American candidates?” The answer is “yes.” In order to increase the numbers of African American candidates we need to understand why the admissions rate for African American candidates is very low. There are several reasons for this phenomenon. In my opinion, when the New York City Board of Education terminated honors programs for students in grades K-8 in favor of creating mixed ability classes, the effect was to lower the standard of academic achievement NYC K-8 schools. This occurs because mixed ability classes are inherently difficult to teach. The unintended effect of mixed ability classes was to deny African American students advanced, intensive academic instruction thus lowering their chances of scoring high on the SHSAT.The mixed ability classes had a second unintended effect; that of creating a set of “tutoring” agencies that identifies high academic ability Black and Hispanic students in the sixth grade. The agencies then provide those students with high quality instruction enabling them to advance their education beyond what they are able to achieve within their public school mixed ability classes. However, instead of channeling their students into Stuyvesant, the goal of these tutoring agencies is to gain admittance for their students to elite private prep schools (which the do very effectively) with tuition, room and board paid by those schools. The effect is drastically decrease the number of highly qualified candidates for admission to Stuyvesant and the rest of the specialized high schools who would have likely been admitted by scoring high enough on the SHSAT.Accordingly, the New York City Department of Education can increase the number of candidates for admission to the Stuyvesant and the rest of the specialized high schools by 1) Reinstating NYC K-8 honors classes (including the “special progress” classes which enabled students to complete three years of junior high school or middle school education in three years). 2) In the interim, create several intensive tutoring services middle school students who have been identified as potentially high academic achievers but whose education has been neglected through the implementation of mixed ability classes. 3) Motivate the parents of Black and/or Latino students to learn of the education opportunities within the NYC school system with particular reference to the specialized high schools as well as other opportunities at the high school level, 4) Increase the number of specialized high schools 5) at the neighborhood high school level, establish high level academic honors programs that mirror the course of study offered at the various specialized high schools. 5) Stock each neighborhood library and middle school library NYC with SHSAT review books that can easily substitute for the expensive SHSAT tutoring services currently available. 6) Use the after school time to allow interested students to study for the SHSAT in the school libraries under the guidance of an (overtime paid) math and English teacher.Since 1934 admission to Stuyvesant has been based solely on the scores achieved on the school’s admission exam. In 1934, Stuyvesant used a test created in conjunction with Columbia University. In “recent” years it has used the SHSAT thus aligning its admission process with the other two math/science/engineering schools, a) The Bronx High School of Science and b) Brooklyn Technical High School. Currently, based upon the SHSAT results, Stuyvesant admits about 3% of its applicants. Once admitted, students take high level, academically enriched courses in all areas of study with particular emphasis on math/science. The level of instruction is high and the academic competition is intense. Stuyvesant High School and Bronx Science, combined, have produced 12 Nobel Prize winners (15 if one takes into consideration the Fields Medal and Wolf Prize in mathematics where no Nobel Prize is awarded). There has also been a substantial number of Academy Awards given to Stuyvesant grads.The SHSAT does not care about your race or ethnic group derivation. The SHSAT doesn’t care if your parents are rich or poor. The SHSAT does not care if your parents buy an entire new computer science wing for Stuyvesant or any of the other specialized high schools. The SHSAT does not care about your volunteer work in third world countries. It simply asks candidates for admission to correctly answer its questions and to score as high as possible. That is the sole criterion for admission to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech. Unlike (as has been recently revealed), many leading colleges and universities, you cannot cheat the SHSAT admission standard and/or have your parents buy your way in.Accordingly, to increase the numbers of Black and Latino students gaining admission to Stuyvesant and the rest of the city’s specialized high schools, then the New York City Department of Education should do the right thing and improve the education that Black and Latino applicants for admission currently receive, even if that means spending the additional money necessary to correct the problems that the DOE itself created through the establishment of mixed ability classes and the discontinuation of the honors classes previously provided these students.

Geoff McGhee is an online journalist who spent a year during his John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford interviewing and researching some of the 'thought leaders' of data visualization, whether that be people or organizations. He compiled his research into a video documentary which can and should be viewed at http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/.This is currently the best starting point into the world of data visualization thought leaders that I am aware of.I've listed the individuals highlighted in the video and included their bios below in order of appearance (excuse typos—had to ocr).Fernanda ViegasViegas is a visualization researcher who joined Google's "Big Picture" data visualization group in the summer of 2010, together with her longtime collaborator at IBM Research, Martin Wattenberg. Viegas is known for using visualization to explore social interchanges in email, chat histories and Wikipedia edit trails. Following on their groundbreaking work creating the public visualization tool ManyEyes, Viegas and Wattenberg recently released TimeFlow, a free downloadable chronological analysis tool for journalists and researchers.Martin WattenbergWattenberg is a prominent visualization researcher and artist, known forinfluential works such as the Baby Name Voyager(2005) and the SmartMoneyMap of the Market (1998). The latter was a milestone visualization in the service of journalism, modifying the "treemap" visualization format of Shneiderman to display a live snapshot of the stock market. Wattenberg spent five years at IBM Research, during which time he co-developed the public visualization tool ManyEyes. Along with his longtime collaborator Fernanda Viegas, Wattenberg joined Google's Cambridge-based research lab in the summer of 2010.Ben FryFry's work spans the worlds of science, technology, art and communication. At the MIT Media Lab, he co-developed the open-source programming toolProcessing with Casey Reas. Processing provides a simple, accessible interface for non-programmers to harness the graphics generation capabilities of the Java programming language. He also wrote the book "Visualizing Data“ (2007), which offers detailed step-by-step instructions for creating some of his most well-known visualizations. Fry recently started a new consulting firm called Fathom that is producing interactive visualizations for such clients as GE Healthcare. His work has been shown in major museums around the world.Aaron KoblinAaron Koblin made a splash with "Flight Patterns," (2004) his influentialvisualization of a single day's airtraffic over the United States. Since getting his masters’ degree from UCLA's Design | Media Arts school, he has had a wide-ranging career in design, visualization, and generative art. He has crowd-sourced songs and drawings using Mechanical Turk, Amazon's web-based system for assigning minute tasks, and at Google's Creative Lab he works on "Chrome Experiments,“ a site intended to showcase the advanced features of modern web browsers. He has collaborated with bands like Radiohead, Interpol and the Arcade Fire to create visualization-driven music videos.Jeffrey HeerHeer is a prolific contributor to the field of information visualization. He led the development of three open source toolkits designed to ease the process of creating visualizations: Prefuse (2004), Flare (2008) and Protovis (2009). Heer is also interested in the social interactions around visualization; in 2006 he worked with the IBM researchers Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas to create Sense.us a collaborative visualization tool that allowed users to mark and comment on historical employment data from the U.S. Census Bureau. He teaches a course in data visualization at Stanford.Steve DuenesDuenes manages a staff of about 30 graphics editors doing reporting, 2D and 3D illustration, programming, interactive design, data analysis and cartography. The group has retooled in the past five years, developing an online graphics capacity to match its reputation in print, with an array of new tools, templates, interface conventions and code libraries. "We're now assembling teams with greater numbers of people on them," he says, "than we used to in order to assemble a print graphic."Amanda CoxWith degrees in mathematics, economics and statistics, Cox has brought new refinement and innovation to The Times’ graphical presentations of quantitative data. She frequently uses the statistical applicationR to plot data sets— often using algorithms developed in the academic world—then outputs them either as line art for print publication, or she works with her colleagues to translate them into Flash code for interactive presentations.J. Paige WestAs the director of nbcnews.com - Breaking news, science and tech news, world news, US news, local news's Interactive Studio in Redmond, Wash, Westmanages a group of about a dozen staff divided evenly between developers and designers. The Interactive Studio creates multimedia and interactive features for one of the most popular U.S. news websites, as well as and tools and templates for producers throughout the MSNBC.oom newsroom. In 2009, MSNBC bought the hyper-local data aggregator Everyblock.com opening the door to blending highly detailed local information with MSNBC's nationally-focused news.Scott Byrne-FraserByrne-Fraser is the Creative Director of the BBC News website. He manages a team of about eight designers, eight journalists and four developers who create maps, infographics, charts and data visualizations. He comes from a background producing 3D and motion graphics for broadcast news at Sky Television. He wants to foster collaboration between the traditionally separate on-air and online graphics teams at the BBC. "We‘ve got a huge TV design team, a huge online design team, and they're currently totally separate silos, and I want to bring the two together so we can do more videos online." He is also working to re-orient the group's focus towards more data analysis and visualization.Nigel HolmesThe former graphics director of Time Magazine and a prolific informationgraphics designer, Nigel Holmes is known for tackling complex and difficultsubjects — the Iraq war, the economic crisis, for example— in ways that are clear and engaging. About some contemporary visualizations he says, "it seems to me to be playing with data rather than extracting meaning from it." He is the author of "Wordless Diagrams," a series of visual explanations that uses no text at all. He is a frequent contributor to publications like Good Magazine, The New York Times Op—Ed page, Wired and the Atlantic Monthly.Richard Koci HernandezHernandez is an Emmy-winning visual journalist who worked at the San JoseMercury News for 15 years. As a visiting fellow at the University of California,Berkeley's Knight Center for Digital Media, he conducts research and trainingprograms in multimedia journalism. Visualization has turned out to be the toughest training challenge, he says. "ln terms of multimedia skills, that's been from my experience the one where we‘ve lacked the most."Alberto CairoAlberto Cairo led the El Mundo.es infographics team in the early 2000s, a time when they and their Madrid rivals El Pais were creating some of the most innovative and sophisticated online graphics in the industry. He taughtinformation graphics and design at the journalism school of the University ofNorth Carolina, where he oversaw a number of standout multimedia projectsand authored the handbook" lntogratia 2.0“ a guide to infographics andcartography. Since 2004, he has co-instructed the workshop in onlineinfographics at the University of Navarre in Spain. In 2009 he joined the Brazilian magazine publishing firm Globo as their director of infographics.John GrimwadeGrimwade is a respected information graphics designer and educator. He is the longtime graphics director for Condé Nast Traveler, and was shared withPortfolio Magazine during its brief run that ended in 2009. He teaches information graphics at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has been an instructor at the "Show Don‘t Tell" workshop at the Malofiej lnfographics Conference in Pamplona since 1993. A veteran of newspaper information graphics at the Times of London, Grimwade has frequently called for data visualizations to be held to strict standards of transparency and clarity.Hannah FairfieldFairfield was a graphics editor for The New York Times from 1999-2010. Inrecent years, she produced the innovative "Metrics" column, a large-formatinformation graphic in the Times’ Sunday business section. With relatively long lead times, she was able to experiment with new graphic forms and sophisticated data presentations of subjects like home foreclosures, unemployment and the difference in salaries between male and female workers. In September 2010, Fairfield became Graphics Director of The Washington Post.Alvaro ValinoValino is part of a five-person team creating information graphics at the Spanish newspaper Publioo. The paper's spare and clean graphic style and ambitious data visualizations netted it 21 medals at the Malofiej awards in 2010, all the more impressive given that the paper was only in its second year of publication. Interestingly, the Publico team has applied a data vis-heavy approach to not only business and hard news stories, but to arts, sports and culture stories, such as graphics exploring EdgarAllen Poe's literary legacy and Paul Newman's career. A visualization of NBA playoff history won a silver medal at Malofiej.Thomas MolenThomas Molen's graphic visualizing votes by country for the 2008 EurovisionSong Contest was a surprise winner of the Malofiej oompetition's prestigious"Best in Show" award for 2010. The graphic sought to investigate whetherEastern European fans voted as a block for other Eastern European countries.Nicholas FeltonNicholas Felton is a graphic designer with an emphasis on visualizaing datathroughout his work. His clients includeCNN, The Wall Street Journal New York Magazine and Wired. Since 2005 he has been publishing personal "annual reports" of his year made with statistical ephemera. In this vein he co-founded the web service Daytum.com which he describes as "a site for counting and communicating daily data." He describes his work variously as "data blogging" and creating "data heirlooms."Eric RodenbeckRodenbeck is a partner in Stamen Design, an influential visualization andinteractive design firm in San Francisco. Stamen's work straddles art, design, news and technology. The company has designed applications and visualizations for clients like MTV, MSNBC, NBC Sports, the London 2012 Olympic Committee, Trulia and others. Stamen's work focuses frequently on visualizing live data streams, such as Twitter activity around entertainment events, or crime data from Oakland and San Francisco. Stamen is a winner of the 2010 Knight News Challenge for a project called "Citytracking", which is intended to help users create visualizations from municipal data.Ola RoslingRosling joined Google in 2007 after its purchase of the nonprofit company called Gapminder that he co-founded with his father, Hans Rosling (the voluble Swedish public health researcher known for his animated TED Talkspresentations on human development). Google incorporated Gapminder's"Trendalyzer" technology for creating animated bubble plots into its onlinespreadsheet tools and, most recently, into a new product called Public DataExplorer.Malofiej Infographics ConferenceThe Malofiej conference and competition is sometimes called "the Pulitzers of information graphics." Held every year since 1993 at the University of Navarre in Pamplona, Spain, it brings together a hundred-plus practitioners of infographics from around the world. It is organized by the Society for News Design, Spain (SND-E). It incorporates workshops, lectures and an awards ceremony that spans a range of breaking news and features categories. In recent years, the most celebrated work has shifted from elaborate illustrations toward abstract and artful representations of data.Dana PriestDana Priest is an investigative reporter forThe Washington Post, celebrated for exposes on conditions in Walter Reed Army Medical Centerand secret CIA prisons She recently co-authored theTop Secret Americaseries on national security contractors, which included a multimedia and data visualization-rich online presentation.One other mentioned in the data journalism video, but not called out with a bio is Mike Bostock, now working for Square. He has developed many of the tools that other online data visualization artists use, such as D3 and Protovis.