--- title: "From 3 Weeks to 2 Days: AI in Data Journalism" description: An Italian data journalist used Claude and Anthropic's Fable AI to rebuild two data journalism projects, cutting a three-week build down to just two days. image: https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/hubfs/chatgpt%20desktop2.jpg --- ![27 Outline Logo](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/27%20Outline%20Logo.svg) - [Home](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org) - [Case Studies](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/case-studies) - [About](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/about-augmented-newsroom) - [Founder](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/founder-augmented-newsroom) [contact us](mailto:malito:alib@augmentednewsroom.org) ## Journalist **Rebuilds** Prison-Deaths Map **90% Faster With AI.** ![](//443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/raw_assets/public/@marketplace/if_else_agency/Aesthetics/assets/images/icons/arrow-down.svg) ![Data Italy](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/Data%20Italy.png) ### **At a Glance** - **Organization**: Independent journalist Jacopo Ottaviani; original 2012 project published on the Guardian Datablog - **Country**: Italy - **AI tool:** Claude Opus and Claude Sonnet via Claude Cowork ### **The Problem** Between May 2012 and January 2002, 915 people died in Italian prisons, just over half by suicide, per data from Ristretti Orizzonti, a Padua-prison newspaper tracking prison deaths since 1992. In 2012 Ottaviani spent roughly three weeks turning a spreadsheet into a map — Patrie Galere — using BatchGeo, OpenRefine, ScraperWiki and Google Fusion Tables, published on the Guardian Datablog. Those tools have mostly gone: BatchGeo later added ads to the map, then took it offline entirely. The underlying problem hasn't: Ristretti Orizzonti recorded 254 deaths in 2025 alone, about 80 suicides, among the worst years since 2012. ### **What They Built** Ottaviani rebuilt a new version of Patrie Galere (Motherland's Prisons in Italian) in two days: a bilingual (English/Italian) LeafletJS dashboard with filters and a new overcrowding section sourced hosted on his own GitHub page rather than a proprietary platform. The data is based on Sovraffollamento Carcerario - a project by Italian journalist Marco Dalla Stella that scrapes data from the Italian Ministry of Justice. ### **How It Actually Worked** For Patrie Galere, Ottaviani split the work in Claude Cowork into roughly twenty single-purpose tasks — data cleaning, base map, clustering, filters, overcrowding layer, bilingual switch, design — using Claude Opus (more complex model) for architecture and Claude Sonnet (more affordable model) for iteration, averaging five or six rounds per task. Two problems surfaced: some code-level text stayed untranslated despite the bilingual switch, and a marker-clustering bug produced totals that didn't add up, on both the map and the dashboard's yearly chart. Ottaviani caught the bug by cross-checking source figures; the model fixed it in one prompt once asked to double-check. ### **The Result** **Two days** — the reported build time for the 2026 Patrie Galere rebuild, down from roughly three weeks in 2012.  ### **Lesson for Journalists** The clustering bug is the central lesson: code that looked correct produced wrong totals, caught only by manual cross-checking. Ottaviani frames the underlying skill as one journalists already have — breaking problems into checkable pieces and applying the same scepticism to AI output as to an unverified quote. ### **Risks and Limits** Fable 5 was suspended by a US export-control directive on 12 June 2026, citing national security and a disputed safety-guardrail flaw; it remained suspended when the source was written.  ### Sources - Jacopo Ottaviani - [Reuters Institute — "From weeks of work to days: how I rebuilt two data journalism projects with AI"](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/weeks-work-days-how-i-rebuilt-two-data-journalism-projects-ai) ![Ali Bahnasawy](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/Ali%20Photos/Square%20Close%20up.png) [**Ali Bahnasawy**](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/case-studies/author/ali-bahnasawy) #### My awesome resource Vivamus suscipit tortor eget felis porttitor volutpat. Curabitur arcu erat, accumsan id imperdiet et, porttitor at sem.  Discover ## Related **blog posts** ![](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/WP%20Images-1.png) **Ask The Post AI: Grounding Chatbot Answers in Verified Reporting** At a Glance Organization: The Washington Post Country: United States AI tool: Ask The Post AI — a generative AI... Read more ![](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/AI%20Icons%20Phone.png) **How BBC Eye Used AI Agents to Expose Russia's Vigilante Networks** At a Glance Read more ![Grey Augmented Newsroom](https://443642032.fs1.hubspotusercontent-ap1.net/hubfs/443642032/Grey%20Augmented%20Newsroom.svg) Augmented Newsroom helps journalists and newsrooms use AI responsibly — faster reporting without sacrificing accuracy or editorial standards. - [Home](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org) - [Case Studies](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/case-studies) - [About](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/about-augmented-newsroom) - [Founder](https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/founder-augmented-newsroom) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Ali Bahnasawy", "url" : "https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/case-studies/author/ali-bahnasawy" }, "dateModified" : "2026-09-10T04:13:16.131Z", "datePublished" : "2026-09-08T04:34:02.000Z", "headline" : "From 3 Weeks to 2 Days: AI in Data Journalism", "image" : [ "https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/hubfs/chatgpt%20desktop2.jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www.augmentednewsroom.org/case-studies/data-journalism-rebuild", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject" } } } ```