

Use your awesome tech powers to help save journalism - andymboyle
http://www.andymboyle.com/2011/07/21/use-your-awesome-tech-powers-to-help-save-journalism/
Journalism needs web developers and technologists, folks. And there are lots of jobs open. You should think about applying.
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jashkenas
Not on the list (yet), but DocumentCloud is also hiring news-conscious hackers
to help work on reader annotations, visualizations, text analysis -- for the
documents behind the news -- and then open-source it all.

[http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/07/with-its-newest-round-of-
kn...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/07/with-its-newest-round-of-knight-
funding-doccloud-will-figure-out-how-to-scale-reader-annotations/)

<https://www.documentcloud.org/opensource>

What documents, you may be asking ... well, current events like:

<http://documents.latimes.com/usa-v-aaron-swartz/>

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2011/jul/15/rebe...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2011/jul/15/rebekah-
brooks-resignation-document)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-
hacking/8634372...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-
hacking/8634372/Phone-hacking-phone-calls-voicemails-and-emails-in-the-News-
of-the-World.html)

If you're interested, you can reach me at jeremy at documentcloud . org.

~~~
tommyg
Hi Jeremy, Where are the offices of DocumentCloud at? Really nice project and
open source software like backbone.js by the way.

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wccrawford
The thought that anyone should need to save a business model is mind-boggling
to me. If it works, it'll make money. If it doesn't make money, people don't
want it enough.

It's not like there are only a few newspapers in this country and that they
could go extinct while people still want to buy them.

------
morganb
So I can go get a job at a failing business, try my best to fight through
bureaucracy and get people to rethink how they've done things, for, I don't
know, a century, and have my work not understood or appreciated? Awesome!

~~~
andymboyle
Never said it wouldn't be a challenge. And I don't agree about the work not
being appreciated. Sometimes it isn't understood, yes, but tell me how many
insurance salespeople understand how the complex web forms they're filling out
work?

And part of the disruption of the news industry can come from within. You can
probably always find regular work as a web developer/technologist somewhere.
But you won't often find a place that gives you more exposure and a louder
voice.

~~~
morganb
If there's good, visionary leadership who wants change and has the full
support of the board and needs engineering and other teams to make it happen
then I agree with you. But if it's just a development job that are opening up
as part of a panic-induced reaction to save their business model they're
already doomed. No developer can fix an industry from inside a business model
that doesn't really want to change. Sure, change can come from within, but it
has to be nurtured and supported from the top.

~~~
danso
Depending on the organization, it may not be "panic-induced" at all. The NYT
is on fairly solid financial footing and have been doing innovative things for
a long time because of their heavy investment in developer and data positions,
including bringing in Jeremy, who's since put forth CoffeeScript, underscore,
and backbone.js

There are other newspapers that are floundering and are basically looking for
someone to take care of the CMS and anytime the server flops. But this is
something you discern from their job description and initial inquiry. So, to
say, "who'd want to work for that dying industry" is like vowing to never work
for a tech startup because of their numerous failures in comparison to the few
success stories.

~~~
morganb
Fair point, but isn't the NYT the exception that validates my gross
generalization?

