How do I create a new Pandas Dataframe Column with data from another column

Question

I have a Pandas dataframe created from a dict of lists. I want to split up those entries under the dates and create a new column called 'Story'.

                             2017-01-31           2017-02-01
 Gates, Bill.            [[SPGC-14075, 0.5]]                  [0]
 Jobs, Steve.            [[SPGC-14075, 3.5]]                  [0]
 Jobs, Steve.             [[SPGC-9456, 2.5]]                  [0]
 White, John ANDERSON.  [[SPGC-14075, 1.75]]  [[SPGC-9456, 5.25]]

Ideal Output:

                         Story            2017-01-31    2017-02-01
 Gates, Bill.           SPGC-14075         0.5                   0
 Jobs, Steve.           SPGC-14075         3.5                   0
 Jobs, Steve.           SPGC-94562          .5                   0
 White, John ANDERSON.  SPGC-14075        1.75                   0
 White, John ANDERSON.  SPGC-9456            0                   5.25

How do I go about doing this using pandas dataframe operations?

EDIT:

Using nanojohn's solution I got this output. Pretty close. Still need to break up that last entry in 2017-02-01.

                       2017-01-31         2017-02-01       Story
Gates, Bill.                 0.50                  0  SPGC-14075
Jobs, Steve.                 3.50                  0  SPGC-14075
Jobs, Steve.                 2.50                  0   SPGC-9456
White, John ANDERSON.        1.75  [SPGC-9456, 5.25]  SPGC-14075

Answer 1

You can try using the .apply() method as follows (assuming that your DataFrame is in a variable called df ):

df['Story'] = df['2017-01-31'].apply(lambda x: x[0][0])
df['2017-01-31'] = df['2017-01-31'].apply(lambda x: x[0][1])
df['2017-02-01'] = df['2017-02-01'].apply(lambda x: x[0])