Reporting
FL#142: Enlisting product managers and automating more complex stories
This week we explore the role of product managers within news organizations, and we find out how more complex stories might be written by computers. PART 1: Product managers for news Borrowing from the tech and business worlds, several large news organizations have integrated the role of product manager into their workflows. The result can … Continued
FL141: Faster fact-checking and nonprofit partnerships
This week we find out how automation might speed up political fact-checking, and we learn what goes into successful partnerships that involve nonprofit news organizations. PART 1: Faster fact-checking It takes time to investigate whether claims made by politicians are true, but technology might help speed up that process. We get some ideas from PolitiFact … Continued
Reporting into structure: How journalists, crowds and robots can work together
In previous posts, I’ve written about structured journalism’s potential to improve newsroom economics by rebundling news as networks of structured information, and to provide new value to consumers by giving them more control over the news they consume. But what does structured journalism do for journalists? Will structure merely contribute to the tech-driven weakening of … Continued
Could digital stories, written by journalists, be good medicine for the health care industry?
How can health care and journalism organizations work together to create digital stories that improve both the health care system and an individual’s health? As I seek answers during my RJI Fellowship at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, I’ll rely on two life experiences: I’m an ex-health care administrator who later got a Ph.D. … Continued
Talk Story, Write Story helps financially disadvantaged children write their way into college
RJI Fellow to pilot a version that newspapers can introduce to local communities
Leadership and culture are linchpins of digital transformation in the newsroom
Little has proven more challenging for newspaper newsrooms than their transformation to digital news and information providers. It takes much more than learning new skills, although those are important. It’s a matter of re-engineering journalists’ attitudes and their relationships with news consumers, as well changing newsroom workflows and priorities. It takes significant culture change; both … Continued
Futures Lab update 84: Engagement using text messages, and corrections via social media
This week we learn about a platform for engaging with audiences via text messages, and we explore how to handle corrections to social media posts. PART 1: Groundsource A new platform called Groundsource seeks to help newsrooms interact with their communities outside the confines of smartphones and social media, instead relying on more basic text … Continued
Covering the news with your mobile device
Learn how to shoot news like a pro with new RJI resource
Pulitzer Prize-winning series on coal miners’ black-lung claims available in RJI Digital Newsbooks
Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., today won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for his three-part series, “Breathless and Burdened: Dying from Black Lung, Buried by Law and Medicine.” According to the Pulitzer citation, Hamby won “for his reports on how some lawyers and doctors rigged a system to … Continued
Futures Lab update #40: News tailored for mobile platforms
This week we bring you three examples of how news is being reengineered for people on the go. PART 1: Circa The mobile app Circa has received a lot of attention for its effort to redefine the experience of keeping up with the news via smartphone. The operation is half newsroom and half tech start-up … Continued