May 31st, 2008 Chris
Journalism, like so many crafts, is often about the process more than the product. A good story will show the trail of reporting and let the reader in on the oblique conventions of policy or public happenings.
Online, too, there is a need for engagement, for openness, not just by those we cover, but by us, the journalists.
But in many ways, the process of getting newspapers from ink on paper to text and multimedia online is getting bogged down by process, when more people really ought to be thinking about the product.
I spoke to a reporter yesterday who is fuming over his paper’s website (it was a private chat about a paper I’d like to work for, so no names here). It’s a conversation I’ve had with friends at several papers, owned by different companies and using different technology. In most cases, there’s a similar theme:
Higher ups don’t get the web, and editors’ eyes glaze over at talk of moderating comments, integrating multimedia, building something that, as Rob Curley says, moves the needle.
What they’re getting stuck on, too often, is the technical details. They’re not thinking about what they want; they’re thinking about how to get there.
Don’t get me wrong, getting there is important, but the underlying code is not something every reporter, photographer and editor needs to, or even should be thinking about. Most of what we do online, as in print, calls for social science more than computer science.
I’ve done this before, helped build a website as the non-technical guy on the team. When we started DalianDalian, Alex was the coder, while Rick hunted for new technology to integrate and I…drew boxes and lines on notebook paper. I would hand those sketches to Alex and say, “Build this.” And to his credit, he did, and even encouraged me to keep doing it (instead of laughing at me or telling me to go learn PHP).
There are plenty of tools I use everyday that I don’t fully understand the underlying mechanics of:
I know how to use all of these things, to be sure, but I couldn’t rebuild Wordpress any more than I could rebuild my car engine. That doesn’t stop me from hitting the gas or posting to my blog. If something breaks that I can’t fix, that’s what professionals are for.
And here’s where I think a lot of newspapers get off track: knowing what takes a technical professional (building and fixing tools) and what anybody should be able to do (use those tools).
In some ways, not knowing the intimate workings of available technology can be useful. It helps you think about what you want to build, not what you probably can build. Here are two ways creating something new can go:
- I have these tools
- I think I can produce this, that and the other thing
Or:
- I want to build this awesome thing
- What tools do I need to get it done?
Again, this is a very real process I go through when producing something online. I built a map this week, and I knew what I wanted it to look like (having explained it in an email to my editor) long before I chose Zeemaps to make it happen. Over the course of putting together the underlying database (taking notes in a Google Notebook, pasting into a Google Spreadsheet), I sent messages out over Twitter asking for suggested tools.
I settled on Zeemaps (which I already liked) because it got me closest to what I’d already envisioned with the least headache.
Bottom line: Systems are imperfect. People have limited skills, and there’s no way everyone can (or should try to) learn everything. But waiting for something ideal, or making excuses because a particular tool isn’t on the table, is going to produce a whole lot of nothing.
Posted in News, multimedia, projects | No Comments »
May 28th, 2008 Chris
A while back, I tried to answer a simple question people often asked me about Dalian: How many people live there?
Simple question, tough answer. Alex found a good dataset, which we put on DalianDalian. Well, the question has come back.
I’m writing a cover story on real estate in China’s second-tier cities for an investment newsletter, and as part of the project, I’ve decided to compile a database of locales, most of which people outside of China have likely never heard (admittedly, there are some I couldn’t have put on a map before starting this piece).
I have a spreadsheet defining cities, provinces, regions, population, major industries, notable real estate and other notes. Most of that information is widely available, especially since these cities are now making a major push for investment. But population has proven tricky. For the map I’ll eventually build off this database, I think I’m going to attach the following disclaimer/explainer:
Counting how many people live in any Chinese city is an imperfect science. For this dataset, we’ve relied on a variety of sources, including government websites, published reports and other online resources.
Part of the problem is the population itself. Chinese cities have been undergoing a massive growth spurt since 1978, when the government first began letting people move to urban areas en masse. Most of this movement is legal, and counted in official surveys. Residents register with local authorities in order to receive government services, such as health and education. But unofficial migration is also widespread, and most cities have large segments that remain uncounted (and unserved).
Further blurring statistics is the way a city is defined. In Dalian, for example, the urban center–what might be called the city proper–is home to about 2 million people. Add in the surrounding “towns” such as Zhuanghe (pop. 700,000) or Pulandian (pop. 900,000)–both of which are a mix of city and countryside–and the total is above 6 million. Different sources count different areas, making a definitive number hard to come by.
This is a long way of saying: Take these numbers with a grain of salt, and please, forgive us if you’ve seen a different number elsewhere.
How’s it sound?
Posted in projects, the Dalian life | 1 Comment »
May 25th, 2008 Chris
Ryan Sholin asks in this month’s Carnival of Journalism:
What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?
A scene from the Grey’s Anatomy season finale I saw last night comes to mind:
A young man is trapped in quick-dry concrete, which he jumped into because he thought it would impress a girl. While he’s moaning in ER–the cement is leaching water from his body, burning his skin, crushing him slowly–the team of doctors, who are all highly gifted and well-trained, is arguing over what has to be done first.
Finally, the chief comes in, says stop arguing, each take a piece, and then everybody gets to work.
It’s a cheeky metaphor for newspapers, I know, but we do have a similar problem. There’s a lot to work on, all of it seems urgent–vital–and plenty of advice from all corners:
- Go web first
- Build a community around your content
- Fix your CMS
- Develop a video strategy
- Develop a more general multimedia strategy
- Reinvent classifieds and job ads
- Embrace mobile
- etc
For individual journalists, the open list of possibilities is equally expansive. There are lists of lists of what every reporter could (and some say must) learn.
- Audio
- Video
- Sound slides
- Flash
- (X)HTML
- Photoshop
- Programming
- Blogging
- Online community management
These are all good ideas, and all good skills. But too many places and too many reporters–myself included–are going in too many directions at once.
Trying to solve every problem in one shot–to build the perfect newsroom, indestructible CMS, that universal theory of everything–is almost guaranteed to leave you with an equally immense list of reasons why nothing can be done at all.
In the same way that trying to cover everything at once yields deep coverage at nothing, trying to fix everything at once is most likely to fix nothing.
So here’s my answer to Ryan’s question: Stop trying to fix everything. Sit back for a minute and think this out a bit.
On a strategic level, find the low-hanging fruit and the cheap solutions. Start small, really small, and build on successes. Getting any one thing right and nailed on the list above will do. Then do something else.
For individuals, same thing, except you need two. Will Sullivan calls these the Peace Out skills, the kind you can walk away with.
And for everybody, please: Don’t panic.
Posted in News, projects | 1 Comment »
May 16th, 2008 Chris
I’m a freelancer.
In a given week, I write for at least three publications, both in print and online (plus this much-neglected blog). Because I’m pretty much at the bottom of each respective totem poll, I tend to get assignments that are, well, befitting that altitude.
I did this at my last newspaper, too, those unglamorous bits and pieces, but since I had a regular beat there, it wasn’t all I did. I had stories that developed over time, that had new angles, and that weren’t just things we covered every year.
So let’s make some lemonade here. What can I learn doing stories that won’t win awards, that have no real controversy, that an editor would trust to a guy she sees at best once a week?
Multimedia. Every time.
I used to complain about having to grind out stories, but damn, it made my writing better. And faster. It meant I didn’t wait to make phone calls or chit chat with sources that weren’t telling me stuff I needed to know. And I’m a better reporter because of it.
When my new editor tells me to cover a parade, I don’t even ask if I can maybe do something multimedia. I just build the slide show.
In my bag–same one I’ve lugged for five years, through four countries–is my laptop (MacBook), audio recorder (Zoom H2), point ‘n shoot (Canon A530), plus the notepad, pens, batteries, cords and a portable 80 GB hard drive.
I’m getting better at this, and it’s getting easier. Building a Soundslides piece takes about an hour. I’ve used photos from staff photographers, subjects and my own camera.
This week I’m going for video, which I haven’t done much of since leaving China. When I can put a two-minute story together in under two hours, I’ll start fine tuning.
Posted in News, multimedia, projects, self-indulgence | No Comments »
May 16th, 2008 Chris
Adrian Holovaty, founder of ChicagoCrime.org and Everyblock.com, spoke at O’Reilly Media’s Where2.0 conference. Video of the entire event is at Blip.tv. Here’s a breakdown of what Holovaty says we can learn from Everyblock:
1: Take advantage of existing data
Plenty of sites start out by asking for contributions. Everyblock doesn’t. Its first mission is to make data that’s already floating around the internet and locked in government file cabinets available and easy to access.
Tips for getting data:
- Be nice: People will help you out if you’re polite. Duh.
- Governments should focus on services: Making mashups and analyzing data is our job. The government’s job is to solve problems and serve its citizens.
- Plot cities/agencies against each other: Tell New York what Chicago is providing. Let one agency know that their bureaucratic rivals are way more open and cooperative. It really does work.
2: The more local it gets, the more effort it takes; but the reward is bigger
Every city has different ways of managing data, and there are no national databases for things like building permits, restaurant inspections or even crime (San Francisco, for example, only specifies a zip code).
Private sites like Flickr, Yelp and others have APIs that work anywhere. A photo in San Francisco is the same as a photo in Chicago.
But it’s worth doing the work, Holovaty says. No one else is aggregating this much information on such a focused area.
3: Embrace hypertext: “Be of the web, not just on the web”
One question to ask when building a site like Everyblock or Chicago Crime: “Will my site work without maps?”
Individual data points–a crime, a liquor license, a neighborhood–all have permanent URLs. All can be found by humans and by Google.
All this makes information easy to find, and easy to share.
4: Move beyond points
Some news applies to a whole neighborhood. Sometimes to a street. Sometimes a block.
When news affects an area, show an area, not a point. This is a bit trickier, technically, but data is more meaningful when it’s applied the right way. If information is only as specific as a city, your map doesn’t need to zoom down to street level. Keep it where it’s relevant.
5: Roll your own maps
Google maps are designed for getting directions. They include one-way streets, bus stops and BART stations. Plus, Google (or Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) decides how they look.
As Holovaty says: You wouldn’t make your corporate website with some generic Wordpress template. Why do that with your maps? Here’s how Everyblock made its maps.
Also notable: Everyblock takes out names to protect privacy. “We don’t want to make people Google-able.”
On how Everyblock will make money: “We have no freakin’ idea. We might go for another grant. We might go VC. We might magically dream up a business model.”
The last question is especially noteworthy: How do you get boundary data?
“We’ve had good luck with governments,” Holovaty said. And that’s a bigger thing than most people realize. American locations geocode pretty well. Try making a Google map in China, and you’ll find yourself staring at a sparsely populated satellite image with no streets and little searchable beyond major cites. And that’s an improvement.
When I first tried making a Dalian map, I had to hunt for landmarks that could be seen from space. Searching “China” returned no results. We essentially did the same thing for the Dalian map (all our bar, cafe, restaurant and event listings) at DalianDalian.
It is possible to get street-level data in China, but only if you read Chinese. Go to ditu.google.com and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s what Xi’an looks like in Ditu, and here it is in English.
Posted in News, multimedia, projects | No Comments »
May 14th, 2008 Chris
I broke it.
And never have I felt more like I owned my blog than after having put the damn thing back together piece by piece.
The whole mess started when I tried to upgrade last week. Since I switched from Blogger to Wordpress in March 2007, I’d been using a version somewhere in the 2.1.x range. It’s been outdated for, oh, a year or so. Upgrading was never much of a priority because everything mostly worked, and my minor theme tweaking was enough.
I did use a separate WP2.3.x install for my portfolio site. It turns out native tagging is sweet, and those tags might not disappear when someone comments (ahem, ultimate tag warrior, not so ultimate, ahem). And when I saw screen shots of the latest version, 2.5.1, I decided it was time.
So, I proceeded to tear down what I had. And then I couldn’t get it back up.
The problem, as far as I can tell, stemmed from my old Techmania theme, which as you can see (feed readers, this would be a good time to click through) is gone for good. I was tired of it anyway.
So I’m back up and running. Expect more posts in the near future. And expect me to continue bouncing (virtually) between China and new media.
Stay tuned.
(Last note: I’m still not set on a new theme, so the look and feel around here might change. Feel free to suggest something new. I like green, and cleaner is better, but beyond that I’m open.)
Posted in projects, self-indulgence | 2 Comments »
