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How Programmer/Journalists Are Changing the News

December 11th, 2009 | by Leah Betancourt2 Comments and 12 Reactions
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online journalism imageToday’s demand for programmer/journalists is one sign of how the Internet has changed the newsroom. While the role has become crucial to many forward-thinking news organizations, traditional newsrooms are often still struggling to integrate programmer/journalists into their everyday workflow.

I spoke to some programmer/journalists about their hybrid roles in news coverage. They had much to offer about the new frontiers of journalism, and how programmer/journalists are bringing unprecedented value to both major and startup news organizations.
The Hybrid Role

EveryBlock image

“Some stories are just better told as databases and interactive web apps,” said Adrian Holovaty, founder of the neighborhood news site EveryBlock, which was funded by a Knight News Challenge grant and acquired by MSNBC.com in August. He explained by e-mail that “newspapers already understand that photography tells a story in a different way, and video tells a story in a different way, and those subdisciplines are well established in news companies. But custom Web apps haven’t crossed that chasm in newsroom culture yet.”

Mike Davidson, CEO of Newsvine, which was acquired by MSNBC.com in 2007, said he was initially more interested in the tech side, but become more vested in the storytelling process. It’s increasingly hard to separate the two roles, he added.

“We’re beginning to discover new ways to tell stories,” said Davidson.

Marcel Levy is a bioinformatics specialist who was the Senior Editor of Digital Media at the Reno Gazette-Journal and created the News Code group on Wired Journalists, a Publish2 network.

He said that those who think of themselves as journalists first will always be thinking of the larger picture. Those who think of themselves as programmers who happen to work at a newspaper may not be serving anyone ve