Customer service: how this is changing rapidly as journalists adopt to the online world and developers think about products for anyone to use. This would identify audiences, consider topics like the digital divide, and also focus on community building.

laurelruma

10

I'm not sure a glossary of straight terms is the best way to do it. It seems that every newsroom has its own lingo, especially when it comes to online journalism, and is figuring out what to do with the resources it has. So there are no clear-cut, industry-wide terms or even position titles.

I think what's more important is to introduce programmers to how newsrooms operate, because programmers who join newsrooms are likely there to work on projects that compliment reporting. Introduce programmers to the basic editorial structure: how newsrooms are organized; how newsrooms operate day-to-day; how stories go from concept, to reporting, to editing, to publish; who and how many people a programmer is likely to be working with on a project (in our case: reporters, several editors, designers, the copy desk, the web producers, in some cases, IT), etc.

It would be great to see case studies of how projects came to be. The WaPo's recent "Top Secret America" would be a good one. Derek Willis gave a really interesting talk at an ONA meetup on producing NYT's Toxic Waters . The video is somewhere online, but I can't find it. Greg Linch probably has the link, so hopefully he'll see this.

devinvarsalona

60

OK, I've got a little rant here, but some important points/questions at the end.

I wrote a post for MediaShift a while back http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/12/how-programmerjournalists-craft-their-own-study-programs336.html and got strung up in the comments for not including any women.

Frankly, while working on the story, I wasn't paying attention to gender, color or age. I was trying to find people who were doing a specific type of journalism/programming work, who were still in school. The people I interviewed and wrote about just happened to have the same genitalia.

I think diversity is important, but when you start constantly thinking "well, there aren't any African Americans in my story," or "there aren't any people over age 30 in my story" you hamstring yourself.

When we focus on fulfilling a "diversity quota," aren't we in fact being discriminatory? How can we be diverse without making things into a race or gender issue? When will race, gender, age etc. exist but not matter? (To paraphrase Toni Morrison.) And how will journalists know that we have reached that point?

Megan Taylor

263

I think it goes to back before the story and coverage even begins. Megan makes some good points: Trying to fit a "diversity quota" into your story obviously (well, hopefully obviously) isn't a good answer, but making sure that the readers your connecting with and asking about what's important, what's new are diverse, and that you're actually covering those communities and people that are often unspoken for.

As to how to do that, I think it's partially old-fashioned shoe leather reporting: Get out there, get out of your comfort zone, move past your local chattering (or Twittering) class and look at communities that are building stuff, and have a real plan and system for analyzing whether you're actually fairly divvying up your reporting assets and are providing coverage and "news you can use" to areas outside the profitable upper-middle-class demographics (here's looking at you Patch.com) and not falling victim to MWWS or similar ailments.

There's also technical means, like database analysis, that help you look past the areas you know and get a better total understanding of your geographic coverage area.

I'm also hopeful that a renewed interest in partnership, from the likes of Pro Publica, Spot.us, and Publish2, can help "inject" some diversity into news organizations, and perhaps a willingness to think outside of the box in terms of what they cover and how they cover it.

Michael Morisy

241

Worth a read: Retha Hill on the IdeaLab: Why Are New Media Conferences Lacking in Minorities?

I'm not altogether sure that going beyond individual funders/conferences/news outlets makes a lot of sense. If you're trying to build a diverse and welcoming community you do that within your funding pool or conference planning process, not beyond it. With that in mind, I'd say I've found it surprising to make my way back into journalism after years of working with community organizers and find a far whiter, maler group of people than I was used to working with. If you're genuinely interested in dismantling that, dismantling racism is one great place to start.

And if you catch this right this second, drop in on the #mediadiversity conversation.

Amanda Hickman

150