Do...journalism

Anyone who has even a passing interest in Journalism will know the 5W's - the five questions you can ask to get the information or the answers you need to tell a story. But is there a more fundamental question worth asking?

The name’s Code. Introducing code.

A basic look at using python to explore text using the lyrics from Bond Themes.

journalism

Journalism.cards — Ideation for journalism.

Journalism.cards is an ideation app aimed at encouraging creative thinking in journalists and journalism students

chrome

Clean screenshots from Google Street View

Getting better screenshots from Google Street view was the excuse I needed to try developing a Chrome Extension

news

News, ritual and inflatable unicorns.

A few months ago I found myself on the the Isle of Man for my brother’s stag do.  The stag party had ended up in the seaside town of Port Erin and had barrelled into a pub with my brother in tow, dressed in an inflatable unicorn suit. As

python

A quick look at UK petitions data in Python

More gentle exploration of python. This time some lines of code for grabbing Parliament petition data.

hyperlocal

Local news in a cashless society

Sat in a nice coffee shop, finding an accessing local news is, like forgetting my wallet, a minor inconvenience solved with a tap of my phone. For many that's not the case...

coding

Creating gentle introductions to coding for journalists...

A brief look at how I'm trying to find gentle ways to introduce coding to students

Datashare and Workbench: Experimenting Data journalism apps.

I got a bit of time to play around with two new data journalism tools that have been on my radar. They offer some interesting perspectives on data journalism

Defining the virtual journalist

Virtual journalism is often interested in how we take our ideas of journalism into the digital space. But what if there are already journalists there?

Ethics

Journalism ethics Vs. Research ethics

How do you balance the ethical demands of university research with the practical and professional demands of teaching journalism?

journalism

Novice and 'deep dive' journalism books

Which journalism books would you pair up for a novice reader and a 'deep-diver'?

journalism

Behind Local News and the hyperlocal challenge.

The Behind local news conference was a chance to see the local news industry put its best foot forward. But also think about where community media fit.

data journalism

Sentence reviews & Intelligent pivots: Google sheets gets an update

The recent update to Google sheets adds intelligent pivot tables and makes asking some basic questions of the data almost too easy...

blogging

Putting a Markdown

In an attempt to rediscover blogging I've moved from Wordpress to Ghost and in the process I've rediscovered the world of Markdown.

maps

QGIS and the joy of maps at the FT

A fantastic inside look at how the FT design maps reminded me why QGIS might be worth a look if you're into mapping your data.

Experiments

Beep. Boop. That’s the sound of my commute

How an impulse buy and a bit of playing around with Python led to an ‘almost’ musical experience of my daily commute.

coding

The GIANT CAP approach to coding for journalists.

There are lots of approaches to coding and software development. Methodologies like Agile, Scrum and Lean are even becoming the norm in newsrooms. But I have a suggestion for a quick and easy methodology for journalist’s getting to grips with coding

Presentations

Grounding journalism education

This is a version of a Keynote speech I gave at the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia conference #JERAA17 in December 2017

data journalism

Two fundamentals that define good data journalism

Defining data journalism is a hostage to fortune but as I start teaching a data journalism module I’ve boiled it down to two things visible methodology and data.

data journalism

Is Data Journalism any more open?

What does the shortlist of the open data category of the Data journalism awards tell us about data journalism’s approach to open data.

data journalism

Local votes for hyperlocal #DDJ

There’s a good deal of interest in my feeds in a BBC report showing how local voting figures shed new light on EU referendum.

data journalism

Why open data needs to be "Citizen literate"

A “data literate” citizen isn’t someone who knows how to handle a spreadsheet — it’s someone who inherently understands the value of data in decision making.

hyperlocal

The BBC, Local democracy, hyperlocal and journalism.

I spent the afternoon in Birmingham at the BBC finding out more about their Local Democracy Reporters scheme.  It’s a project I’ve been keeping an eye on for a number of reasons. The promise of 150 new jobs in journalism, especially ones that are exclusively aimed at covering

video

Making Instagram video with Powerpoint

Audio slideshows are something I’ve included in my practical teaching for a little while. The combination of images and well recorded audio is, for me, a compelling form of content and it can be an easy video win for non-broadcast shops.