How to become a ‘harmless linker’ in three easy steps

You’ll probably also become a big fan of the Wayback Machine Mis- and dis-information are spread a number of ways and the thought of trying to free the news ecosystem of misleading, disingenuous and fraudulent news items can be overwhelming and disillusioning. But former RJI Fellow Barrett Golding is advocating one small step for mankind … Continued

Getting a source to ‘yes’

We have to put in the work. The first stage of my project was getting newsrooms on board with making their reporting more reflective of the communities they cover. Next, my media partners and I had to answer that age-old question: “How do I find and-or curate more diverse sources?” With those two things accomplished, … Continued

Descript, overdub: Q&A with Tamar Charney

Innovation in Focus is a series exploring emerging technology and methods of storytelling for newsrooms worldwide. We interview experts, test tools and provide our findings on a different topic each month. For Innovation in Focus this month I spoke with Tamar Charney, managing director for personalization and curation at NPR, about the ethics of redubbing, … Continued

Journalists are creators now, and that’s a good thing

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Reynolds Journalism Institute or the University of Missouri. Journalism’s hostility is understandable, but our denial is not.In 2009, the former editor-in-chief at Thomson Reuters, David Schlesinger, described journalism as one of the great self-declared professions. He wrote, … Continued

Unpublishing challenges demand cohesion between pre- and post-publication policies

Newsroom project shows newsmaking and “news breaking” policies go hand-in-hand I met with several editorial leaders of the Columbia Missourian and KOMU-TV recently about our project to develop pre-publication policies that are crafted in consideration of the longtail of publishing. I’ve written about the importance of critically analyzing reporting practices in a previous article. Our … Continued

How visual metaphor helps move our data off the page

And into people’s brains It’s a new year, and as I’m nearing the end of this fellowship, it seems worth pulling the lens back a bit. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about nuts and bolts —how to build a bot, when to opt for quick and dirty hacks over fresh code, if and … Continued

Sony enters drone market seeking professional partners

Usually characterized by a shoulder-to-shoulder push to see the latest in drone technology on a sprawling exhibit floor in Las Vegas, the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show was an entirely different affair, held virtually and lacking the biggest name in drones — DJI. With the conference grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, the effort this month wasn’t … Continued

Pre-reporting for data journalists

A brief intro to exploratory analysis In a recent paper, a pair of statisticians took a stab at outlining “the most important statistical ideas of the past 50 years.” Among them: “counterfactual causal inference, bootstrapping and simulation-based inference, overparameterized models and regularization, multilevel models, generic computation algorithms, adaptive decision analysis, robust inference, and exploratory data … Continued

Inject, Pinpoint and Vizydrop: Tips and tricks

We tried multiple tools to help find, develop and illustrate a story for KBIA For my last Innovation in Focus piece for the year, I wanted to try a few new tools while I was reporting on the passing of Amendment 3 for KBIA with a group of three other journalists. You can read and … Continued