It's been frustrating to see journalism fight technology and I've always thought that most journalists didn't care too much about it. This morning I ran into two blog posts that confirm just how wrong I've been:
The first was Amy Graham's post Working With Journalists: What's in it for Geeks?:
This discussion got me thinking: Right now, it's becoming obvious to
many journalists that our field sorely needs lots of top-notch,
creative technologists. Developers for whom software is a medium, and
an art form. Developers with a deep passion for information,
credibility, fairness, usefulness, and free speech.
Which linked to Richard Gordon's by Journalists & Technologists: An Uneasy Courtship recounting his experience at the recently held Computation + Journalism Symposium:
Still, by the end of the first day, I was a bit frustrated. We'd
heard journalists talk about their uses of technology, and we'd heard
computer scientists talk about technologies relevant to journalism. But
it was uncommon for anyone to try to connect the two. I was ready to
mix it up, to argue, to move on to talking about new ideas and
solutions to the problems journalists and media companies are facing.
But we never seemed to get there.Upon reflection, I realized: This was like a first date. You know
the feeling. You talk mostly about what you do. You ask a few
questions. You're very careful not to get spaghetti sauce on your tie.
But you're so careful about making a good impression that you don't
really delve very deep. You and the person across the table are
ultra-polite, but you don't really understand each other. If you like
the other person, you're hoping to keep the door open to a second date.
If you don't, you're hoping to find a graceful way to avoid hurting
your companion's feelings.
On a slightly different note, my new favorite online news site SocialMedian, recently came out with an election tracking widget (I wrote a little about it in this post I wrote for the company blog). And if you're looking for election coverage with a tech twist, Jason Goldberg, the founder, will also be covering the election with Leo Laporte live on This Week in Tech on Tuesday, Nov 4 @ 8 pm EST/ 5 pm PST. If that still doesn't do it for you, see Mashable's The Ultimate Election Day 2008 Toolkit.
In the spirit of democracy and freedom, go out and rock that vote!
Or not. Either way it's up to you.
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