Journalism for All

Dave Winer has been writing recently about the topic of teaching journalism to many people:

  • Working together, in 2019 – “…Most important we have to stop thinking of journalism as a way for a small number of people to earn a living and do a lousy job of serving the people’s interest, and more of a civic calling, a way for all of us to add meaning to each others’ lives. Until we get there, we’ll keep electing losers like Trump and getting no further in solving the climate and social crises. (1/4/2019)
  • Wondering About Journalists – “I wonder if any journalists out there agree it’s worth a shot to train a million people in basic journalism…” (12/14/2019).

As well as in the past:

  • Idea: An Indivisible Guide for Journalism – “…Like the Indivisible howto, but for journalism. Teach everyday people the basics of reporting. It would be incredible for our self-government if we had millions of people who knew how to report based on actual facts….” (2/13/2017).
  • Journalism Is Easy To Define – “… I get an idea for a story or someone gives me one. Do a little searching on the web, call a few people. Take notes on what I hear. Call some other people or send them emails. Write up the notes on my computer. Organize them into a sequence. Then, I optionally offer it for review to other people to get their opinions and they possibly rewrite it, or I incorporate their feedback and make changes. This is called editing. This process iterates a few times. Then the story is published, usually on a website, and possibly at some later time on paper. If you do this then you’re doing journalism. If you do something else, it’s something else. It’s not good or bad. But this is what we call journalism. ” (9/3/2011)

I have read these thoughts from Dave Winer in the past, and generally agreed with them (it would be good for people to have some experience in journalistic writing), but did not do anything about it. Well, a few days ago, I read this from Ron Chester:

After all, we now have the advantage that, more than ever before, men & women of all kinds of backgrounds, races, cultures, religions and more have a real opportunity to contribute to our path forward. Surely this will lead to good things. That’s how I see it anyway. (from One Person Can Change A Lot (12/25/2018))

So, following Ron’s advice, and in the spirit of Derek Sivers’ article First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy (where the first follower shows other people how to follow), I am going to try to be the first follower. Since my training is in aerospace engineering/software development, I felt the need to find a few resources to start teaching myself about the practice of journalism. I decided to focus on three resources: The New York Times, the BBC, and the Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Texas. Here are the starter resources I am going to review for my first news story:

New York Times:

  • The Promise of Online Journalism – A series published by the New York Times in 2001 (I actually remember this when it came out!) working with Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Contains 8 chapters plus resource links at the end, Chapter 4 covers the nuts and bolts about reporting.
  • Teaching and Learning about Journalism – A post from November 2009 on the Learning Network blog, this post provides a great list of resources for New York Times and other resources for student journalists and their teachers and advisers.

BBC:

Knight Center/University of Texas

  • Journalism 2.0 – Free PDF copy of this book from 2007, covers the full range of digital technologies for new reporting (although somewhat dated), still a good read, I thought it made the case for anyone being able to create and publish news stories with the technology we have. (Direct link to English PDF copy, the link on the page is broken)
  • Course Catalog – Many of the courses taught by the Knight Center are still available online

I am committing to creating a news story by January 13th – there, I put that out there! Anyone with me? Let’s hear from you!

 

 

via Stephen Downes, I have wanted to find out more about Jupyter for a while, but have not been able to make myself make time to do this. However, knowing that there is some environment that I can use that is already set up may reduce the friction…we shall see….

via Chris Aldrich, Jon Udell talks about the use of tagging posts as curation. I have never gotten into the habit of adding tags to posts, but this is increasing my desire to do so. I may need to play with Pinboard a little bit to get a better feel for the benefits…

How I am getting back to work

Today is my first day back on the job at Collins Aerospace. Like many people do after a vacation, I spent a while trying to remember what I was doing before my Christmas vacation (read some emails, looked at the group chat, checked my engineering notebook, looked at an old task list). Finally, I decided to restart my Personal Kanban board by looking at the Post-it notes from last year, throwing away most of what was on the board, then capturing every current task I could think of on a new Post-it note and adding it to the backlog section of the board (titled “Ready”, meaning “ready to be worked on”).

Next, I did a preliminary ordering of tasks in the “Ready” column, then I selected two tasks to add to the “Doing” column. This would be my “work-in-progress” items. The book Personal Kanban recommends limiting how many items you are working at a given time (see also Personal Kanban 101 and my introduction to Personal Kanban). This helps to focus effort on getting tasks completed. When I create a Post-it note, I write the task description and the date I am creating on the note. I include the date so I can see how long it takes to do a task. If I look at the end of the week and a task I created at the beginning of the week is still in the “Ready” column, I might consider moving it up in priority.

I like to define tasks so that I can get them done in half a day or less. It’s also ok if a task only takes five or ten minutes. Another strategy I use is to mix up shorter and longer tasks. Using this technique, I feel I like I am getting more done.  When I don’t write tasks down, I start to feel anxious and unorganized. When that happens, I try to review what is on the board, see if I need to add any tasks, then get back to one of the tasks in the “Doing” column. If I have an interruption, I may create a new task to provide a next action or closure to that interruption, then resume the task I was working on prior to the interruption. I try to defer working on the interruption task until I complete my prior task. In that way, I can make more progress on the work I have already defined for myself.

When I complete a task, I move it over to the Done area of the kanban board. I also stack all of the tasks that I complete during the day. This also helps to provide a feeling of accomplishment as the stack grows. During the day, as I think of more tasks, I create a new Post-it note and add it to the Ready column. Sometimes, I will rearrange my backlog order based on an external stimulus (someone needs something NOW). The important thing for me is to capture tasks as I think about them, and not keep them in my head (similar to the GTD step of collecting tasks/information). If a task reaches a sticking point, I move it to the “Waiting” area of the board, and make a note of what is needed for this task to be resumed.

The Personal Kanban technique has been a great tool for me to keep up with my job. I like the ease of a physical system, but many people like using tools like Kanbanchi or Trello to be able to access tasks from wherever they might be. Regardless of the tool, the Personal Kanban system is a powerful way to get a better handle on your work. Give it a try!

 

2018: My year in review

Looking back over my posts, this has been my most prolific year in blogging (posted something in every month except August!). At the start of the year, I was trying to post a link a day, and managed to get into early February before dropping off. In March, I did a first-ever podcast to look at how my feed would capture the enclosure, as Pocket Casts (my phone podcast client) seemed to be having problems with picking up podcasts that were part of blogs (like Scripting News). April and May each had a link post, but June showed more activity (a Pocket Casts bug report, some links, a blog conversation with John Philpin about the micro.blog service, and getting my Technician ham radio license). July brought a return to link posts, and I began to start responding to other posts trying to use the Webmention protocol. In September, I got interested in Federated Wiki again, had a phone call with Ward Cunningham and wrote a post or two on that topic, as well as some links. October had 3 posts, but a key one was a link to an item by Seth Godin encouraging the reader to do something every day that builds an asset for you. I decided to rededicate myself to posting something daily, whether it be just a link or something more substantial. This lead to 18 posts in November and 27 posts in December! In November, I began to get more involved with users of the micro.blog service, particularly John Philpin and Ron Chester, who I met while I was using the 1999 blog tool from Dave Winer some years ago. I did a few more podcasts, and started work on a new book (listen to podcast episode 2 for more information on that!). I have also been working with Ron Chester to set up a river of news for Bob Dylan sites, and helping with setting up some WordPress blogs for Bob Dylan writing and ham radio writing. I also wrote up instructions to help others set up rivers of news for their areas of interest. The most exciting event for me in December was to see one of my posts (Is there a RSS revival going on?) appear in Stephen Downes’ OLDaily newsletter – wow!

With this increase in posting, I am getting more and more in the habit of posting. If it is getting near the end of the day with no post, I work to at least find a link that I want to save on my blog. I have enjoyed playing with IndieWeb technologies like Webmention, and starting my “In The Car” podcast has been fun. I have even told John Philpin that I would love to be a guest on his new podcast – whoa! Finally, I have enjoyed reading and interacting with fellow bloggers on micro.blog, have had a taste of community, and I like it! I am looking forward to many great posts to come. Here’s to a great year in 2019 and a post a day!

Inspector Maigret Resources

My wife and I just finished watching the Maigret TV series on Britbox, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I did some research on the original Jules Maigret novels by Georges Simenon. Penguin began releasing updated translations of the novels in 2013, they are now up to book 55 (full available list from Penguin). The site Book Series in Order has a list of the original publication order. I have reserved the first one at the library – looking forward to it!