Automating election results from local data sources

We teamed up with the Voice of OC, a non-profit, local news site in Orange County, California, to automate their live election results. We teamed up with the Voice of OC, a non-profit, local news site in Orange County, California, to automate their live election results. By integrating data from several authorities, we provided up-to-the-minute … Continued

RJI Fellow expands work on mobile news app for smaller news organizations

Push notifications from The New York Times, the Guardian, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post alert us every day to scandal, horror, scientific achievement and grief. However, this capability lies mainly in the realm of large news organizations. Without a 24-hour news desk, smaller news outlets — especially weeklies and investigative centers — struggle to remind users … Continued

How The Washington Post built a publishing platform accidentally on purpose

The Elizabethan dramaturge John Webster gave one of his characters these immortal words: “There’s nothing of so infinite vexation/As man’s own thoughts.” Of course, he was lucky enough to live nearly 400 years before the first content management system was invented. In early 2013, The Washington Post found itself in a particularly vexing situation: The … Continued

WordPress moves news past the printed newspaper

Local newspaper sites have long broken all the rules for building a sticky site. Most still load painfully slowly. They are difficult to navigate and — let’s be honest — often ugly.—Matthew Hindman, Shorenstein Center For centuries newspaper design has stayed about the same. In 1880 printers introduced halftone photographs and in the 1980s the … Continued

New RJI Fellow to develop suite of apps to help streamline workflow of community journalists

A 2015-2016 RJI Fellow wants to streamline the workflow in small- to mid-sized newsrooms by creating apps to assist journalists in their day-to-day tasks. These tasks could range from fact-checking and finding free images to creating immersive multimedia presentations and previewing mobile versions of their articles. The project will put “big-media tools” into the hands … Continued

RJI announces its 2015-2016 class of fellows

From exploring journalistic opportunities for wearable technology to helping smaller community newspapers provide digital services for advertisers, the ninth fellowship class of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute continues RJI’s commitment to nurturing and strengthening journalism’s service to citizens and their communities. This year’s residential, nonresidential and institutional fellowships were chosen from among 225 applicants … Continued