{"id":58666,"date":"2019-08-07T16:23:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=58666"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:35:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:35:59","slug":"joel-eastwood-pulitzer-wsj","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/joel-eastwood-pulitzer-wsj\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping a Scandal Yields a Pulitzer for Alum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Mapping a Scandal Yields a Pulitzer for Alum\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

If you tried to follow the timeline of the Donald Trump \u201chush money\u201d scandal over the last couple of years, you could be forgiven for losing track of who allegedly paid whom when and for what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, unless you saw Carleton University graduate Joel Eastwood\u2019s infographics in the Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eastwood\u2019s colleagues in the WSJ<\/em> newsroom broke the \u201chush money\u201d story and he worked with them for months to develop graphics that would illustrate the flow of funds secretly funnelled through the president\u2019s former lawyer, Michael Cohen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eastwood also created timelines of public statements, with titles such as \u201cDonald Trump on whether he knew about the payment to Stormy Daniels\u201d and \u201cWheeling and Dealing,\u201d which outlined Cohen\u2019s negotiations on behalf of the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These stories, and the timelines that accompanied them, earned the Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s staff the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Eastwood is the graphics editor on the investigations team.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

A Years-Long Investigation Yields a Pulitzer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe award represented a years-long investigation by a team of more than a dozen reporters, editors, graphic journalists and video journalists,\u201d said Eastwood, who joined WSJ<\/em> in January 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI would sit down with the reporters and when an angle bubbled up, we would see if there was a visualization that could accompany it or a timeline to help the readers. My contributions complemented the wider scope of the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As a Carleton journalism student, Eastwood wanted to be a daily print reporter. He got his start as editor of The Charlatan<\/a><\/em>, Carleton\u2019s student newspaper, which he describes as \u201ca newsroom like all others\u2014the same dynamic, same daily discussions, and questioning of news judgment. Those lessons are still relevant today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also completed job placements at the Globe and Mail<\/em> and Canadian Press<\/em> in Ottawa. But it was a second-year class with CBC journalist David McKie, which taught students to mine data for story ideas, that really sparked Eastwood\u2019s passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure how many people love spreadsheets, but I loved it. It kicked off a pet interest,\u201d he said. \u201cI would try to find a data-driven angle whenever I could and pitch stories based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n

Turning a Pet Interest into a Full-Time Job<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Eastwood applied those skills in a year-long internship at the Toronto Star<\/em>, which segued into a job as a data journalist. Suddenly his \u201cpet interest\u201d was a full-time job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing that\u2019s interesting about this niche is that the rules aren\u2019t really written yet,\u201d said Eastwood.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe ask if there\u2019s a better way to tell a story than several hundred words on a page. Text isn\u2019t necessarily the best way to get at a complex story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Just six years after graduation, Eastwood is living in New York City, working at the WSJ and \u201coccasionally pinching\u201d himself. But on the day of the Pulitzer announcement, his attention was largely elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the same day as the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, so I was focused on putting together a 3D architectural model of the cathedral when I heard a cheer erupt across the newsroom,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a very happy surprise, followed by a newsroom celebration and a toast. Then we got back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
\nMore Stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you tried to follow the timeline of the Donald Trump \u201chush money\u201d scandal over the last couple of years, you could be forgiven for losing track of who allegedly paid whom when and for what. That is, unless you saw Carleton University graduate Joel Eastwood\u2019s infographics in the Wall Street Journal. Eastwood\u2019s colleagues in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":58667,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[17],"cu_story_tag":[1924,1921],"class_list":["post-58666","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-alumni","cu_story_tag-advancement","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-public-and-global-affairs"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97487,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58666\/revisions\/97487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=58666"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=58666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}