Challenges in newsroom technology
Challenges unique to reporters / newsrooms more broadly
Training required for ?
Security
S: Requests -- ability to bank stories... abilitiy to develop and safely stash it somewhere, shceduled publishing
Complex workflow for video news --> namespacing for basecamp integration
CMSes, CRMs...
Project management system
Document workflow
Wordpress plugins to set roles and groups ... complex diagram based workflow
(Back to challenges)
Tooling and training for removing identifying information // training about what could be insecure
Clients have terrible taxonomy systems
Challenges in Latin America ... tiny country, two big newspapers ... hard to find a job, then you find one because the crisis is in all mediums
Old fashioned models for publishing, modernization hasn't really helped. Mixed platforms, mixed audiences... don't know which way to be to reach audience with managing content.
Lat am: Major publications without even a website. People still believe in the newspaper. Comfort zones and trust ... paywalls often fail.
Editors who believe in the web. Journalists themselves have closed minds about digital. You can do more in digital than write an article. The audience now is a problem too -- their desires are changing, video, gif, etc.
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Not a journalist problem. Distribution if you're online only. How are you finding your audience? Are you chasing them through facebook?
Common problem: posting everywhere (platforms). Want to repeat what people are doing. Maybe less is more. Trying to think more about can be done. Bringing in influence of illustration, other fields.
Facebook looms large over this conversations (TK)
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Role of Google news ... compliance with Google's standards (e.g. Google amp)
Google's tagging can be problematic -- being tagged as satire
Kenya's 2nd largest newspaper is tagged as satire
What you see in intl news is whoever meets the criteria and makes it in
One of reasons everyone chases Facebook is that your traffic numbers go up
Need to show growth in audience and traffic. But what's real growth?
How to communicate with donors about what impact is?
The way algorithms on Twitter and Google sink certain stories
When you look for content, it's really hard to find even if it's getting reported and produced
Clients with major loss in traffic on left wing (and maybe right wing) ... seems to be changes in Google's algoerithsm
If you're not on Google, did you actually write an article?
For daily nation in kenya, extra-controversial stuff only goes into print. Way to sneak in some content.
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Question of personalization
Wary from a mission perspective
Customizing the donation appeal based on reading histories
Right wing news sites are far more interlinked than other corners of media
Progressive news organizations don't seem to do that well
You are what you link to in Google's terms. Reporters are wary to lose traffic or just making things harder to read.
Interorganizational agreements, standards for link backs etc
Allowing free republishing of content ... but how to find it? Requesting that people add a tracking pixel
Issue area tracking -- audience is going to be very small, publishing with partners. Very uneven sharing.
Past year changed Requesting that people add a tracking pixel
Issue area tracking -- audience is going to be very small, publishing with partners. Very uneven sharing.
Past year changed ...
For FPI, US DOJ started going after people, not going to take prosecuting journalists off the table
SecureDrop - Don't want to know what's passing, but still need to track
Reporters sometimes don't want to think
Lack of nuance in "I need to be secure" ... can meet in the middle
Threats and resiliency -- news sites more exposed to DDOS
Some orgs -- subject to incredible barage of attacks ... how to afford the protection?
Pillars: analytics, personalization, security