Hacks/Hackers began as a meetup, but the vision for the group is about more than social gatherings. There’s already been so much talk about the future of journalism. We wanted to create a community of people leading the charge and building that future. We’re moving ahead with more of that plan. Hacks/Hackers is partnering with KQED, the leading public radio station in the country, to host its first workshop event May 21-23.
For months now, Aron Pilhofer and I have been talking about a Web site where people doing computer programming in journalism could ask and answer questions, solve each other’s problems and, in general, build a supportive community. Somewhere along the way, someone said to me, “You mean, like Stack Overflow?” I went to visit the site — a thriving support community for software developers — and it looked very much like what we had in mind.
You’ll be quicker and have happier programmers if you leave the CMS to what it’s really good at, and let the newsroom developers use MVC frameworks like Django and Ruby on Rails.
The art of making sense of data — and it is truly an art — is a key element in building the future of journalism. Interactive presentations created from data can be personalized by the reader, giving a more engaging news experience. Data-based applications can also lead to new business models, through paid or subscription-based applications that give extra value to readers by providing a new dimension on news coverage.
The BBC World Service recently told its reporters to embrace social media, or leave, the clear sign that social media are central to the work of journalism. BBC World Service Director Peter Horrocks explains how social media (read: all new forms of communication, including texting) can lead to strong reportage: “Classic examples are situations where it is hard to report from. In northern Nigeria, for example, we are using mobile phones which we provided to villages.
My pal Brian Boyer wrote an excellent synopsis of his NICAR 2010 talk recently. It’s well worth a read even if you aren’t writing web applications in your newsroom. For folks who write software for a living, there’s nothing here you probably don’t already know. But for those of us new to this whole development thing, his advice is indispensable — especially coming from the very different culture of a newsroom.
The Online News Association, the premier organization for online journalists, is holding a meetup Wednesday night (March 24), and you are invited. It’s not an official Hacks/Hackers event, but it’s a chance to network with Chicago area online journalists. Location: the [Holiday Club][2], 4000 N. Sheridan Rd. (near Sheridan and Irving Park). The main speaker will be Muhammad Saleem, the social media director of ChicagoNow.com, who will report on what he learned at South by Southwest Interactive.
Thanks to all who turned out at Google for our event on Wave and journalism. If you weren’t able to make it, the archived livestream of the event is embedded below (two videos). There’s lots of info there about the concepts behind Wave as well as demonstrations of typical workflows. “It took Twitter months to get the 1 verb of its product into the popular lexicon. Wave has a whole new vocabulary!
I’m excited to announce that we’re joining forces with some industry leaders working at the intersection of journalism and technology to help expand Hacks/Hackers into a wider community. Rich Gordon, associate professor and director of digital innovation at the Medill School of Journalism, and Aron Pilhofer, editor of Interactive News Technologies at The New York Times, will be helping to build Hacks/Hackers. We all felt this is the right idea at the right time, and look forward to bringing our different perspectives on the issue to help foster this community.
For the next Hacks/Hackers event, we’ll be heading to Google headquarters in Mountain View to talk about Wave and potential applications for journalism. I’ll be writing more about what people have done so far in a future post and are happy to hear about ways you think it could be useful. But for now, here’s the description for the event from our meetup site, and please go ahead and RSVP here.