
OpenNews: Why Develop in the Newsroom? - knowtheory
http://sinker.tumblr.com/post/27833803775/opennews-why-develop-in-the-newsroom
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odacrem
This is great stuff!!! It truly is an exciting time to be working in
news/media.

It is absolutely the case that mixing, mashing, hacking and building are a
means-of-expression as vital to news/media as words and images.

A key ingredient in our sauce over here at Vox Media (SB Nation, The Verge and
soon Polygon) is a break with the old pattern where technology and development
teams are considered (at the organization and conceptual level) to be
utilities or tool providers for editorial and business initiatives.

Rather, we embrace what internet native reporting and story telling require:
an organization and mindset where editorial, business initiatives and
technology are intertwined together like some kind of triple helix.

This sounds like business speak but what it really is a tough challenge - one
that is very exciting and one that is creating some pretty great opportunities
for creative people and builders.

The Knight-Mozilla OpenNews initiative looks like a great a way to get
involved and I very much look forward to the ideas and things this fellowship
program produces.

Cheers!

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dansinker
These videos were created in part to help spread the word about the Knight-
Mozilla Fellowships, which place developers, hackers, and tech-minded folks
into newsrooms around the world to do open-source development, travel the
world hacking the news, and much more. Tons of info here:
mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/

The application closes August 11.

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knowtheory
Particularly with all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the supposed
demise of news, it's worth hearing from folks who actually _work_ in these
environments.

More importantly, it's worth noting that they're doing some amazing work
there.

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3amOpsGuy
I think i've missed the point. How is this any different from sitting RAD (as
in "rapid application development") guys in your business teams?

Lots of companies do this already across many sectors.

EDIT: It's still cool though.

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rabidsnail
You kill the project (or at least put it in maintenance mode) even if it gets
traction.

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rabidsnail
What's the difference between news and information? Is it just freshness? Is
the story format really the best way to convey the state of the world to the
individual person on the other end of the wire, or is it just the best format
for broadcast?

My main frustration with The News is the story format. Not only do I have to
spend the mental energy of reading the story, but I have to spend _more_
mental energy unraveling the narrative into its primary sources. Often that's
actually impossible to do and I end up giving up and not reading the rest of
the story.

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dansinker
I'd say that the difference between "news" and "information" isn't freshness,
but relevancy. There's a lot of information out there that doesn't have
relevancy to a user. When it does, that information transitions from simply
being "information" into "news."

In terms of story, we are as a culture oriented toward story and narrative. I
think that's been true for forever. Cave paintings are remnants of ancient
narratives (and of the point that information (there are buffaloes) becomes
news (there are buffaloes near us, so we killed them) in the same way that
newspapers reflect the remnants of more recent narratives and how all sorts of
information delivery vehicles now contain narratives today.

The key thing about The News today though is that it's still pretty reflective
of old forms, and that's probably where your frustration with the story format
comes in. Those old forms actually made sense when they were created, in part
because they reflected the needs of the delivery systems.

Of course now the needs of, say, telegraphs during the civil war (which is
where the "reverse pyramid" system was created) is a silly way to make your
news.

Which is why what some newsrooms and devs are doing to blow up the story, to
start thinking about how to put information across in ways that are exciting
and new and reflective both of medium but also representational (and
respectful) of the information itself is pretty damn kick-ass.

I'm thinking of something like this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/11/sports/basketb...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/11/sports/basketball/nba-
shot-analysis.html)

There's actually a lot of narrative there, but it's narrative in a very
different way than we'd normally think about it. There's a ton of information
there as well, but it's been touched in really thoughtful ways.

Things like this, which are happening more and more every day, make me super
excited.

PS. WOW that was a long answer.

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rabidsnail
I think we're saying basically the same thing, but you're more patient than I
am (and possibly more willing to compromise).

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dansinker
Haha. You are probably correct on both fronts.

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jessevondoom
I know Dan and a few of the others involved in this project and their passion
is both amazing and warranted. Data is becoming and indispensable tool in the
modern newsroom, and it makes sense that the pairing of seasoned journalists
and creative developers is key to uncovering new stories today.

Pretty exciting stuff, and I can't wait to see what they do next.

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rabidsnail
David Nolen is really involved in the Clojure community (core.logic,
core.match, clojurescript). I had no idea he worked at the Times.

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dansinker
The talent the Times has managed to build up on its dev team is pretty
unbelievable.

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danso
About 5 - 10 years ago, the status quo was to have developers be part of the
business side of news orgs, that is, controlled by the ad people...not
necessarily a bad thing, but a situation wholly different than what is being
discussed in the OP, where hackers are helping to advance the news product and
reportage.

I'm having trouble thinking of other professions in which developers work
inside the "prized" group of the organization -- in this case, editorial --
rather than as contractors or part of the IT group. Maybe programmers in the
certain sectors of the financial industry?

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dansinker
I think you're right: There's a real shift now in newsrooms as they realize
the value of having developers involved in the editorial process and the power
in creating web-native news experiences.

