Idea Lab

Computation + Journalism Confab: Exciting, Disappointing and Confusing

by Dori J. Maynard
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Last week's Symposium on Computation & Journalism left me excited, disappointed and confused. It was hard not to be excited listening to all the technologists talking about the latest advances that will allow us to get news to once isolated people in Africa and India using mobile phones and other technology. Once again, it was driven home that no longer is the price of a computer a barrier to digital participation. The ubiquitous cell phone, as common in my neighborhood as the bikes people use for transportation, is now allowing us to get news to people all over the world....

• February 25, 2008
• 1 comment

Journalists and Technologists: An Uneasy Courtship

by Rich Gordon
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

The first Computation + Journalism Symposium, held Friday and Saturday at Georgia Tech, is over. It's been widely covered in the blogosphere -- you'll find some of the most thoughtful reflections here and here and here and here. As I said before the panel I moderated (on "Advances in Newsgathering"), the event was truly remarkable. More than 200 people -- a mix of academics and professionals, editors and reporters, journalists and Web developers (including the two Knight Challenge journalist-programmer scholarship winners) -- came together to talk about the ways technology is changing journalism and what journalism needs to do to...

• February 25, 2008
• 4 comments