RJI news
After 7 months reporting, a surprise discovery — Obits are evergreen
Recently I sat down with the Tampa Bay Times’ analytics tool, Parse.ly, to see what I could learn from seven months of obituary reporting. I found something I did not expect. I read author reports each week on the pieces I write, so I see how they did one week after publication. I’ve learned how … Continued
Journalists are creators now, and that’s a good thing
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, “I am a journalist because I said I was one more than two decades ago and have spent the years since working on my abilities. I am not … Continued
Wise up to Markdown
If you produce journalism for the web, Markdown was made for you Markdown is useful for journalists (and anyone who writes for the web) because it’s a reliable, open-source technology with a non-proprietary format. Copy can be written and edited once and then disseminated through multiple websites, mobile apps, etc. For example, if you were … 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
Having a natural curiosity about mundane processes
Data journalism and where it’s headed next Alex Richards is an assistant professor S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. I spoke to him about data journalism and what is in its future. Monnay: Can you describe your history and experience with data journalism? I was a graduate student at the University of … 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
Launching a newsletter and thinking about analytics
It’s not just about clicks When we launched our obits newsletter, How They Lived, on December 8, I had one big concern: Would anyone read it? Honestly, I worry about that with everything I publish, but launching a new product so close to the holidays only amped up that worry. The beauty of making journalism … Continued
Taking a look at the Boston Globe’s “Fresh Start” program
Here are some key elements to consider Last week, the Boston Globe announced a new program to help reduce the impact of personal information found online. The Fresh Start initiative invites people to request a review of information about them in the news site’s public-facing archive, similar to some other efforts we’ve seen launched in … 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