Research, journalism, software, and documentary film.
Signal: johnnybassett.02
Plucky Works
Founder & CEO · Software for local newsrooms
I founded and lead Plucky Works, a company building practical software for local newsrooms. Our tools help editors manage community submissions, event calendars, freelance assignments, and story sharing alongside their existing publishing systems.
The company grew out of my work with the Granite State News Collaborative, where we worked with editors to replace a story-sharing process built around email and Google Drive folders. That project became Plucky Wire. I now lead the company as we expand that approach to other everyday newsroom workflows.
My PhD dissertation traces Davao City's political and economic history from 1980 to 1998, drawing on local newspapers, economic data, archival research, and interviews. I defended it in May 2024.
The research included digitizing more than 220,000 newspaper pages, which became the basis of the Davao Newspaper Library.
I built the digitization pipeline, database, and search application for a collection of more than 300,000 newspaper pages from Davao City, Philippines, working with Ateneo de Davao University and the Mindanao Times.
The library is available for academic research; email me to request access.
2022 · Investigative journalism and historical GIS
I developed the research and wrote a three-part history of housing segregation in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the Granite State News Collaborative. I digitized and compared zoning maps dating to 1929 to examine how land-use policy reinforced divisions by income and race.
The series received a 2023 Public Occurrences Award.
A short observational documentary about a Mayan boy coming of age in southern Mexico. As his family's difficulties mount, he considers leaving his village to help support them.
A feature documentary about a 40-year-old man in the rural Philippines who enrolls in elementary school after discovering that his employer has been cheating him of wages.
