By Elizabeth Tannen ’05 / Photo by Chava S谩nchez
Journalist Aaron Mendelson 鈥09 has heard it again and again: numbers don鈥檛 work on the radio. But he鈥檚 got a different take: it鈥檚 not that people can鈥檛 follow numbers in audio reporting. They just need to be well contextualized in the stories those numbers tell.
Mendelson works as an investigative reporter for KPCC, National Public Radio鈥檚 Southern California affiliate. He specializes in data research, uncovering the kind of information most of us would be hard pressed to find.
Mendelson doesn鈥檛 rely only on data for his reporting. For all the time he spends sifting through public records, he spends at least as many hours in the field, talking to people whose lives intersect with those records.
But, he says, the data is what can spark a story and guide him to those conversations.
Take, for example, one of his biggest recent projects: a longform expos茅 of an LA slumlord. The idea came when he was on vacation in Mexico, reading Matthew Desmond鈥檚 Evicted, which chronicles the stories of Milwaukee tenants, landlords, and others caught up in what鈥檚 become the big business of evictions.
At first he just wanted to know which Southern California zip codes had the highest rates of evictions. But in poring over law enforcement records, he noticed something else: a pattern of strikingly similar names in the plaintiff column.
By combing through county tax assessor data, Mendelson was able to trace the similar handles to a single owner, Mike Nijjar. A conservative estimate, Mendelson reported, is that businesses connected to Nijjar own 16,000 units. And, according to Mendelson鈥檚 extensive reporting, many of those units are in devastating disrepair鈥攆orcing low-income tenants, who are often also immigrants and BIPOC, to deal with bedbugs, electrical problems, mold, fires, and more.
His story revealed not only the numbers but the personal stories of tenants like Vernon Moore, who told Mendelson about the persistent mold, and Nancy Romero, who shared about bedbugs.
Mendelson explains how crucial data research was in developing that story: 鈥淚f you want to find out who the biggest landlord is in LA, that鈥檚 something you can鈥檛 easily Google,鈥 he says.
A lot of supposedly public data, like court records, also costs money to obtain. 鈥淎nd who does that hurt?鈥 Mendelson says. 鈥淣ot corporate lawyers, but community groups trying to research a landlord, or freelance journalists working a story.鈥
His report received a lot of attention, and some are hoping it can lead to a legislative response. Oakland area assemblywoman Buffy Wicks introduced a bill that would track data including ownership, rents, and vacancies for landlords who own more than five units.
During his Macalester years, Mendelson didn鈥檛 imagine a career in journalism. He didn鈥檛 expect much of any career upon his graduation: the Great Recession began during his senior year and prospects everywhere seemed scarce.
But he did develop an intense habit of reading the news while at Mac. 鈥淚鈥檝e always been a super consumer of the things I like,鈥 Mendelson says. He recalls picking up free copies of the New York Times available in the Campus Center every day.
He also grew an appreciation for film and nurtured a lifelong passion for music. Mendelson majored in media and cultural studies, and spent much of his time in the basement office of WMCN, Macalester鈥檚 radio station. In addition to hosting a 鈥減rime time鈥 music show, Mendelson held just about every administrative position possible at the station鈥攊ncluding office manager, music director, and program director. 鈥淭hat was a huge part of my experience,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 probably not a coincidence that I wound up working in radio.鈥
After graduation, during the height of the Great Recession, he worked a sequence of AmeriCorps gigs: first for a workforce center in north Minneapolis, where he encountered the Recession鈥檚 brute impact.
His next placement was also where he got his first taste of news radio: KFAI, a Minneapolis community radio station. He recalls covering high-profile events like the mayor鈥檚 State of the City address and a Habitat for Humanity-sponsored visit from former President Jimmy Carter. He also supported interns who delivered the hourly news update and, along the way, learned the tools and skills of audio production. He remembers thinking, 鈥渢his is something I could do.鈥
That eventually led Mendelson to the journalism graduate program at the University of California鈥揃erkeley. One of his courses at Berkeley, taught by two New York Times reporters, was in data journalism: broadly, the use of statistics to support reporting, encompassing the spectrum from watchdog investigations to features about baseball.
鈥淚 liked how you could find stories through examining charts and maps that you wouldn鈥檛 find anywhere else,鈥 he says.
In addition to reporting on housing, Mendelson has investigated police shootings and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti鈥檚 outsized charity fund鈥攐ne that鈥檚 received donations from the likes of Rihanna and the government of Qatar. He and a colleague recently published an investigation about a group of egregiously mismanaged nursing homes鈥攎ismanagement that has often proved deadly.
Even when he鈥檚 deep in data, Mendelson says that his work is 鈥渘ot as monastic as people might think.鈥
He toggles back and forth between the numbers and the actual humans who can help him decipher what they mean. And then he turns it all into a story that listeners can understand鈥攅ven when numbers are involved.
鈥淚 do get pretty excited when I come across something big,鈥 he says. 鈥淪o I tend to want to share it right away.鈥
Elizabeth Tannen ’05 is a freelance writer in Minneapolis.
