Comments on: (J)journalist/(P)programmer

By: William M. Hartnett

William M. Hartnett — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:05:17 +0000

Thanks for the link, Megan.

@nigel: Programming skills are no different from video editing or Flash production in that people in the newsroom need to learn them only to the extent that it assists them in their specific journalistic role. A local news reporter might be asked to record a bit of audio and grab a video clip with a point and shoot camera, hardly all-consuming tasks, but we shouldn’t expect them to bother with high-end editing software or pro video cameras. (Unless they want to!) Similarly, in my job as a “computer-assisted reporting” specialist, I might need to write a bit of script to manipulate a million-record database, but I don’t need to be messing around with a Canon XH A1. (Though, as an unabashed gadget geek, I wouldn’t mind having a go on one, as long as I don’t have to pay for it.)

@David: Still wide awake and leaving comments on blogs in the middle of the night, I see. Man, you really aren’t getting any sleep!

By: Derek Willis

Derek Willis — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:40:10 +0000

I think the proper response to Nigel is that few folks really complained when journalists had to learn how to use the telephone, the typewriter and the Atex terminal (well, there were some complaints about the last one). Programming is just another tool for doing journalism. Not everybody has to be an expert at it, but just as you wouldn’t want a newsroom full of people who refuse to use the telephone, you also wouldn’t want a newsroom where no one has some programming ability.

By: Megan Taylor

Megan Taylor — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:24:59 +0000

Nigel, there can still be specialization. I didn’t mean to say that journalists should all have the same skill set, because that would be redundant. But if an hour of Google searches makes the difference between being able to build a map and not doing so, well geez, search away!
Some journalists will be more comfortable with Flash, others with PHP, etc. And realistically, there will always be some who run screaming from an HTML tag.
So who loses?

By: David Cohn

David Cohn — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:14:10 +0000

Nigel
Funny — the tagline to my blog is “jake of all trades, master of none” — I use it to be fascitious of course.

Bottom line: Journalists, whether they use video, audio, php or whatever are always doing one thing: exchanging information by telling stories.

While Megan is right to point me out as being on one side of the debate — in the end, if a journalist can tell a story with code — they should. I’m not trying to say we should hand over the narrative for database coding every day. But there are times when a story can be told better by using different tools.

The question is: can they learn those tools? If they can — they need to keep in mind WHY they are learning those tools. If they do — I don’t think it’s a matter of being a jake of all trades, master of none — they are a jake of all tools — and they use those tools effectively to tell better stories. Just my two cents.

By: nigel barlow

nigel barlow — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:14:38 +0000

Megan,

I think that there is a danger that journalists will become experts in everything,masters of nothing at this rate.
Already expected to be proficient in multi media,video,futher tasks to learn will be to the detriment of a journalists main skills.

In society in general ,organisations see multi tasking as a way of reducing costs.It leads to a detrimental effect on the main task.