About
Hi, I’m Anthony DeBarros. I’m a journalist at USA TODAY, working with words, code and data. I’m also a husband, father, musician, gardener and occasional poet. I love finding and telling great stories. I’m inspired by art and music that elevate. I pursue the truth. Data journalism’s the focus here, but other topics will crop up. Any opinions here belong to me alone and do not reflect the opinions of my employers past or present. Thanks for reading.
Now
I’m currently the senior database editor at USA TODAY, where I head a team of database editors. Our job is to find news in data. We build data sets, or acquire them, and then we mine them to discover stories. The topics range from the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to the Census to tracking the top money makers on the concert circuit. Once we find stories, we work with reporters to craft them and with designers to tell them visually. No two days are the same, and the only constant is change.
In the past
Before USA TODAY, I spent a decade at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a newspaper covering New York’s mid-Hudson Valley. I started as an obit writer and police reporter. Over time, I covered local government, became a copy editor, assistant city editor and features editor, covered music and technology and wrote two different weekly columns. In the early 1990s, I launched one of the news industry’s earliest online ventures — a dial-up service called the Poughkeeepsie Journal Bulletin Board System.
I’m twice a graduate of Marist College, where I also taught journalism. I still speak to students whenever and wherever someone invites me.
Prior to my career in print and digital, I had the gift of spending several years behind the microphone at WPDH-FM, at the time the top-rated FM rock station in the mid-Hudson Valley.
When I’m not working, I’m most often enjoying time with my family. I enjoy the guitar, music, chess, art, poetry and systematic theology.
About this site
I’m using WordPress and a theme I built from scratch (and tinker with incessantly). It’s easier than you think. I had lots of help from this tutorial from wpdesigner.com. I also borrowed some ideas from the Hemingway theme, particularly in the header. Web hosting is by WebFaction. All material is mine; any reproductions of my published work are owned by the respective copyright holders and are displayed for portfolio purposes only.
