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Open Journalism & the Open Web
Course Material
- 1. Syllabus for Open Journalism
- Week 6: Audio, chat log and slides
- Week 6: Government journalism and engaging your readers
- Week 5: audio, chat log and slides
- Week 5: Business Model for Journalism
- Week 4: Assignment
- Week 4: Audio and chat log
- Week 4: Big Ugly Datasets for Thumb-Fingered Journalists
- Week 3: Assignment
- Week 3: Audio and chat log
- Week 3: Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism.
- Week 2: Audio and chat log
- Week 2: Assignment
- Week 2: Project Management
- Week 1: Audio and chat log
- Week 1: Assignment
- Comment on The Journalist as Programmer
- Week 1: Fundamentals of Journalism on the Open Web
- Opening Lecture with Rich Gordon & Burt Herman
- Opening Lecture with Mark Surman & Christopher Blizzard
- Logistics: How to participate in the lectures, chats, etc.
- Facilitators and subject matter experts
Comment on The Journalist as Programmer
I read “The Journalist as Programmer: A Case Study of The New York Times Interactive News Technology Department.” It was of particular interest to me because I was doing a temporary stint as an online oped contributor during the period of the study. So I was one of the people on the other end of the phone (or more often the email).
But I am a features writer or columnist, so “data driven news” doesn’t often have much immediate bearing on what I do. For instance, here’s a piece I wrote for the NYT during that study period: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/once-upon-a-time-in-the-bronx/?scp=1&sq=once%20upon%20a%20time%20in%20the%20bronx&st=cse
Not much data here, since I’m reminiscing, second-hand, about my dad’s childhood in the 1920s. I want to understand more about incorporating photos or drawings in what I do. But beyond that what could we have added to this piece? Maybe video or audio interviews (my 90-year-old dad is still cogent), or links to archival photos of the Bronx. Maybe some way to map comments, so readers could choose the ones closer in geography, or in time.
But obviously it makes more sense to concentrate the programming brainpower in areas where it can have a bigger payoff. As is, I don’t always get some of the NYT data visualizations, including the one about renting vs. buying. Often, I just don’t have time to think about them. These visualizations need to be really simple and really clear. I would also like to see more programming and data-based news initiatives that have the potential to change government—for instance, obliging local governments to make information available online and in formats that would enable reporters (and citizens) to make easy correlations between political contributions and contract awards for government work.
One other thought. The programming voodoo is an impediment to collaboration. Maybe you know what this means, but I don’t: "The project management program Basecamp is used to manage the range of projects. Times servers are used for anything a user sees on the
site, but the department decided to use Amazon EC2 servers for out-facing items, like certain database functionality." Out-facing?
But I am a features writer or columnist, so “data driven news” doesn’t often have much immediate bearing on what I do. For instance, here’s a piece I wrote for the NYT during that study period: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/once-upon-a-time-in-the-bronx/?scp=1&sq=once%20upon%20a%20time%20in%20the%20bronx&st=cse
Not much data here, since I’m reminiscing, second-hand, about my dad’s childhood in the 1920s. I want to understand more about incorporating photos or drawings in what I do. But beyond that what could we have added to this piece? Maybe video or audio interviews (my 90-year-old dad is still cogent), or links to archival photos of the Bronx. Maybe some way to map comments, so readers could choose the ones closer in geography, or in time.
But obviously it makes more sense to concentrate the programming brainpower in areas where it can have a bigger payoff. As is, I don’t always get some of the NYT data visualizations, including the one about renting vs. buying. Often, I just don’t have time to think about them. These visualizations need to be really simple and really clear. I would also like to see more programming and data-based news initiatives that have the potential to change government—for instance, obliging local governments to make information available online and in formats that would enable reporters (and citizens) to make easy correlations between political contributions and contract awards for government work.
One other thought. The programming voodoo is an impediment to collaboration. Maybe you know what this means, but I don’t: "The project management program Basecamp is used to manage the range of projects. Times servers are used for anything a user sees on the
site, but the department decided to use Amazon EC2 servers for out-facing items, like certain database functionality." Out-facing?
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Comments
I'm supposed to be on the
I'm supposed to be on the hacker side but I don't really expect everyone to get into programming proper, especially using GIT and Ruby, which are both for programming enthusiasts (in my opinion), not people who just want to get things done (although the enthusiastic community is great if you need help).
Programming does demand a lot of attention, it has many details, but learning the basics about variables, storage and transfer, and if/then can be enough insight.
Philip mentioned we are going to talk about Linked Data, the open standards push behind open, widely re-usable idea, and I hope it becomes a big focus in the course, at least as big as "programming," because not everyone needs to be a nitty gritty programmer, and Linked Data is designed to allow combining data across the web, using the viewer and filters of your choice... Sites like Wikileaks prove how important it can be to simply fill in puzzle pieces (though they desperately need people to take their information and present it well).
I agree that using a version
I agree that using a version control tool like Git is not for the casual programmers. However, the same goal (the ability to retrieve older document versions) can be accomplished using much simpler methods. For example, on Apple computers there is software called "Time Machine" and there is online-based software called 'Dropbox'. Both allow people to use a friendly interface to select previous versions of computer files.