I woke this morning having just experienced the first eight-hour sleep that I've had since last Wednesday. You see, I'm fresh back from Investigative Reporters & Editors Computer-Assisted Reporting conference and -- as un-sexy as the name of the event sounds -- I can tell you first hand that sleep is not a priority for attendees.
I was there with my "MoJo" hat on, and the thirty-second summary is:
- 1 twelve-hour travel adventure to get to Raleigh, NC
- 3 exhausting & informative days of conference sessions & one-on-one conversations with presenters & attendees
- 10 video interviews
- 30 pages of handwritten notes
- 40+ conversations about the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership
- And, last but not least, only one foot-in-mouth moment (sadly, in front of the venerable Aron Pilhofer - oops!)
On route back from the event, I was corresponding with an activist-journalist friend and she asked "What exactly is 'computer-assisted reporting' anyway?" I'm hoping that this three-minute video summary (please excuse my amateur video editing skills) might provide a sense of what the event was all about (even though it does a lousy job of answering that specific question). You can watch the video below in all modern browsers, or check it out on YouTube if you're using IE):
Featured in this video are:
- Mark Horvit, IRE/NICAR
- Michelle Minkoff, PBS News
- Tom Meagher, The Star-Ledger
- Wendy Norris, Knight Fellow, Stanford
- Joe Germuska, Chicago Tribune
- (And cameo appearances by lots of others; see if you can spot yourself.)
More than anything else, this event galvanized a lot of my thinking about the long-term potential for the Knight-Mozilla partnership, which I look forward to unpacking over the coming days. It also served to reinforce the theory of change that we're working with, i.e.: open innovation challenges & fellows embedded in news organizations. It has been rare that I've left a three-day conference with more tangible outcomes than that. Kudos to you, #NICAR11.
So, just to wrap things up, I want to offer a big, sincere, "thank you" to all of the people mentioned above and listed below. Each of these generous, wise, souls made time to ask about Knight-Mozilla partnership and to provide valuable input on the initiative; from a stolen moment between sessions to a shared meal, these folks really gave of their time to support Mozilla's foray into the world of journalism.
No doubt I've left a few people's names off this list, so I apologize in advance for any errors or omissions (feel free to report them).
- Bill Allison, Sunlight Foundation
- Chris Amico, NPR
- Jeremy Ashkenas, DocumentCloud
- Jan-Morten Bjornbakk, The Norwegian News Agency
- Andy Boyle, New York Times Regional Media Group
- Aaron Bycoffe, Sunlight Foundation
- Sarah Cohen, Duke University
- Rhiannon Coppin, Data Journalist
- Mike Corey, California Watch
- Amanda Cox, The New York Times
- Kevin Davis, Investigative News Network
- Chase Davis, California Watch
- Len De Groot, Knight Digital Media Center
- Sarah Dorsey, Sunlight Foundation
- Anders Eriksen, TV 2 Norway
- Ellie Fields, Tableau Public
- Jacob Fenton, Investigative Reporting Workshop
- Rich Gordon, Northwestern University
- Jacob Harris, The New York Times
- Jeffrey Heer, Stanford University
- Amanda Hickman, Document Cloud
- David Huynh, Google
- Scott Klein, ProPublica
- Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica
- Jenny 8 Lee, Muckraker & Fire starter
- Adam Marcus, MIT
- Amanda Michel, ProPublica
- Maggie Mulvihill, New England Center for Investigative Reporting
- Anupama Narayanswamy, Sunlight Foundation
- Mark Ng, Cronkite School at Arizona State University
- Olga Pierce, ProPublica
- Grant Smith, The Commercial Appeal
- Matt Stiles, Texas Tribune
- Jonathan Stray, Associated Press
- James Turk, Sunlight Labs
- Eric Ulken, Seattle Times
- Matthew Waite, University of Nebraska
- Kevin Webb, Open Plans
- Derek Willis, The New York Times
- Chrys Wu, Matchstrike
- Lindsay Young, Sunlight Foundation
- Also in attendance were two familiar faces from the Toronto chapter of Hacks/Hackers: Allison Martell & Tim Groves.
Once again, thanks everyone.
P.S. Stay tuned for a video from the all-night "hack-a-thon," featuring Andy Boyle, Mike Corey, and Derek Willis.