9 ms·

How can a programmer help The New York Times report stories?

47 points by jashkenas 10y ago

passivepinetree 10y ago
This is pretty cool, actually. It's neat to see a prominent company * actively advertising open source contributions * not requiring endless whiteboarding sessions * wanting to review past projects as a large part of the interview
- wildpeaks 10y ago
  I recall the creator of the open source library D3.js also used to work there and did a lot great interactive pieces for articles. Their open source blog is also quite interesting: https://open.blogs.nytimes.com https://open.blogs.nytimes.com
  - jashkenas 10y ago
    He certainly did: https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-bostock https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-bostock
- vinhboy 10y ago
  I've been looking through hundreds of job ads for about a month now. This is honestly one of the best. They are putting emphasis on your passionate and fit, rather listing random technology stacks and bs requirements. Bravo NYTimes. Proving again that you get it.
  - jeremyjbowers 10y ago
    Thank you. We worked hard on our last two or three job advertisements. This represents the culmination of probably 8 months of conversation and experimentation.
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  We open-source an awful lot of our code, including our entire 2016 general election codebase. https://github.com/newsdev/ https://github.com/newsdev/
mcculley 10y ago
Yes! There is a need for more people in journalism who understand the principles of data relationships and are comfortable with modern technology. Whoever takes this job or one at another newspaper, here's a subset of my desiderata for modern journalists: Every article should have machine readable metadata including: * The author * The geographic and political point(s) or region(s) discussed in the article * URLs of related content (serious news outlets need to fight their desire to keep the user from leaving the site) * A boolean that indicates if the article uses anonymous sources (tools could then filter out such articles when desired) * Implicit version control showing each published revision of an article and who made the change
- koolba 10y ago
  > * Implicit version control showing each published revision of an article and who made the change That last one made me laugh. With traditional print, you'd have a newer version of an article (say the afternoon edition) highlight the changes or the newspaper would publish a correction in a separate section of the paper. You'd think with modern technology there would be a better way of presenting that type of information but it seems like the real response from the publishing industry has been to simply perform ninja edits and hope nobody notices.
  - mcculley 10y ago
    Yes, I've noticed the same thing and it has annoyed me. Newspapers are historical artifacts. They have a duty to history to be accountable about such changes.
  - putsteadywere 10y ago
    This seems like it is exactly what a blockchain is for...
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  hNews Microformats: http://microformats.org/wiki/hnews http://microformats.org/wiki/hnews Support this. ALL MEDIA, please. Actually, I'd love to see Google require this (and possibly, additions), for qualifications for Google News listings. Most especially: reputation tracking of reporters, authors, editors, and publishers, most especially on accuracy (inclusive of corrections, which reduce but don't eliminate error penalties).
jashkenas 10y ago
If folks have questions — feel free to ask in here. I'm sure we can lean on @jeremybowers (whose job opening it is) to swing by and answer some...
- chis 10y ago
  Any interest in hiring interns?
  - jashkenas 10y ago
    Definitely. Usually in the summertime. http://www.nytco.com/careers/newsroom-summer-internships/ http://www.nytco.com/careers/newsroom-summer-internships/
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  I'm Jeremy Bowers, and I'm hiring for this job. If you have questions, I'll be monitoring this thread or you can email me: jeremy.bowers@nytimes.com.
tbirrell 10y ago
First question. What languages are in use? Because I know LAMP, but this might be on Microsoft or MEAN. In which case I'll have found and cleaned up 3 projects and a resume for no reason. All the information needs to be presented upfront, I don't want to have to go looking for it.
- jashkenas 10y ago
  I believe it's somewhat flexible — as this post is for a new, small team (within Interactive News). So there's not necessarily a big existing codebase to maintain, and they're going to be working on some greenfield reporting tools. That said, we use a lot of JavaScript, a fair amount of R, a medium amount of Ruby, some Python, and occasionally Go. Stats skills are a plus, as are database skills, as are design chops.
- wehere1 10y ago
  lol wow you really missed the point
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  Hi! We're a mix of Python, Ruby, Node and the occasional bit of Go. We decided not to add that to the job description because we don't make our hiring decisions based on command of a particular language. If you have concerns, send me an email: jeremy.bowers@nytimes.com.
vinhboy 10y ago
I want to join the NYTimes and build a "chronicle" feature. I hate how news stories develop overtime, but there is nothing to "chronicle" the story from beginning to end. Linking to related stories is a temporary fix, but a standard timeline would be better. It should even motivate people to contribute to "follow-ups" on stories. Report what happened to the affected parties, where are they now, etc... This is in the interest of keeping people informed and engaged. Instead of endlessly chasing "breaking news" Take the "Oroville Dam" story for example. I would love to be able to subscribe to a timeline of updates as more unfold. A year from now, will there be a story about how the dam was fixed? How government money was spent? etc... Or whatever happened to those girls who were locked in that guy's basement? Whatever happened to them? Where are they now?
- mcculley 10y ago
  I've taken to keeping handy a link to "Current events" on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events) for this reason.
- big_youth 10y ago
  This is essential!! I recently purchased the domain cnnisfake.news to expose all the times the media releases a fake story. This thread and posts have inspired me to get it working!!
- larubbio 10y ago
  I had a similar idea, but wanted to build it outside of a single news organisation. Basically a news aggregator, but it would detect when different articles are about the same topic and try to tell if the newer article added anything to the story. This aggregation system would then track public interest in a story over time (based on clicks) along with media interest (based on new stories) I also wanted to add in user, publication and reporter 'leanings' by having a mechanism where users could say that they thought a story was left/right/neutral. The act of voting would count as a push having the affect of slightly moving the publication and reporter in one direction and the voter in another. I would then use an ELO type metric so a user who was very far in one direction wouldn't have the same impact as a user more in the center.
tptacek 10y ago
The irony of this is that it's March 1, and there's a hiring thread on the site today, which is where stuff like this belongs.
- jashkenas 10y ago
  Sorry about that — I think I posted it a few minutes before the hiring thread went up (or at least, a couple hours before I noticed it). I wasn't really expecting this listing to reach the front page — but I can understand that it did. There's been so much energy / handwringing / chatter in recent months about our increasingly post-factual era, governments' relationships with journalism, and possible technical remedies, that I thought this new team (which has some very sharp people on it) might strike a chord here.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It totally will! A text version of that site will probably wind up voted to the top of the hiring thread. :)
    - jashkenas 10y ago
      It's been in there for an hour+, and sits lonely at 2 points as of the writing of this sentence. So go figure!
  - taylorbuley 10y ago
    Heads up that the mailbot is throwing out responses saying there's no jobs available. Because this was posted today, I'm sure if that means there are no longer any jobs available or the responder just hasn't been updated. > Thank you for your interest in Interactive News. We do not have open positions at this time but we would like to stay in contact with you as our hiring needs evolve.
    - jashkenas 10y ago
      Thanks for the headsup — I'll let them know. Edit: Bowers says that he's fixed it now.
suneilp 10y ago
What does "You know how to meet deadlines creatively and collaboratively." mean? Mostly the creatively part is what piqued my interest.
- jashkenas 10y ago
  To hazard a response, meeting a deadline creatively is knowing how best to trim, tweak and reimagine your concept to get in done in time. One of the most fun and different aspects about writing code in a newsroom is the extremely different timescales that are involved compared to normal programming. If you think it sounds like fun to sit down in front of a blank page of HTML with a fresh government dataset, RStudio, a copy of D3, a cup of coffee and 36 hours to see how good of an exploration and explanation you can come up with, this might be the job for you.
  - jeremyjbowers 10y ago
    This is absolutely correct.
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  You know the saw about software development; if the features are fixed, flex the deadline. We're the opposite: We can't move a general election or we might have to respond to breaking news. We value your ability to make decisions about how to get a piece of software working quickly but without making it impossible to maintain. It requires creativity, and we think of it more of an art than a science.
TuringNYC 10y ago
I realize this does not answer the question, but I'd suggest helping ProPublica. They even have a GitHub acct w/ assets! https://github.com/propublica https://github.com/propublica

47 points by jashkenas 10y ago

This is pretty cool, actually. It's neat to see a prominent company * actively advertising open source contributions * not requiring endless whiteboarding sessions * wanting to review past projects as a large part of the interview

wildpeaks 10y ago
I recall the creator of the open source library D3.js also used to work there and did a lot great interactive pieces for articles. Their open source blog is also quite interesting: https://open.blogs.nytimes.com https://open.blogs.nytimes.com
- jashkenas 10y ago
  He certainly did: https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-bostock https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-bostock
vinhboy 10y ago
I've been looking through hundreds of job ads for about a month now. This is honestly one of the best. They are putting emphasis on your passionate and fit, rather listing random technology stacks and bs requirements. Bravo NYTimes. Proving again that you get it.
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  Thank you. We worked hard on our last two or three job advertisements. This represents the culmination of probably 8 months of conversation and experimentation.
jeremyjbowers 10y ago
We open-source an awful lot of our code, including our entire 2016 general election codebase. https://github.com/newsdev/ https://github.com/newsdev/

mcculley 10y ago

Yes! There is a need for more people in journalism who understand the principles of data relationships and are comfortable with modern technology. Whoever takes this job or one at another newspaper, here's a subset of my desiderata for modern journalists: Every article should have machine readable metadata including: * The author * The geographic and political point(s) or region(s) discussed in the article * URLs of related content (serious news outlets need to fight their desire to keep the user from leaving the site) * A boolean that indicates if the article uses anonymous sources (tools could then filter out such articles when desired) * Implicit version control showing each published revision of an article and who made the change

koolba 10y ago
> * Implicit version control showing each published revision of an article and who made the change That last one made me laugh. With traditional print, you'd have a newer version of an article (say the afternoon edition) highlight the changes or the newspaper would publish a correction in a separate section of the paper. You'd think with modern technology there would be a better way of presenting that type of information but it seems like the real response from the publishing industry has been to simply perform ninja edits and hope nobody notices.
- mcculley 10y ago
  Yes, I've noticed the same thing and it has annoyed me. Newspapers are historical artifacts. They have a duty to history to be accountable about such changes.
- putsteadywere 10y ago
  This seems like it is exactly what a blockchain is for...
dredmorbius 10y ago
hNews Microformats: http://microformats.org/wiki/hnews http://microformats.org/wiki/hnews Support this. ALL MEDIA, please. Actually, I'd love to see Google require this (and possibly, additions), for qualifications for Google News listings. Most especially: reputation tracking of reporters, authors, editors, and publishers, most especially on accuracy (inclusive of corrections, which reduce but don't eliminate error penalties).

jashkenas 10y ago

If folks have questions — feel free to ask in here. I'm sure we can lean on @jeremybowers (whose job opening it is) to swing by and answer some...

chis 10y ago
Any interest in hiring interns?
- jashkenas 10y ago
  Definitely. Usually in the summertime. http://www.nytco.com/careers/newsroom-summer-internships/ http://www.nytco.com/careers/newsroom-summer-internships/
jeremyjbowers 10y ago
I'm Jeremy Bowers, and I'm hiring for this job. If you have questions, I'll be monitoring this thread or you can email me: jeremy.bowers@nytimes.com.

tbirrell 10y ago

First question. What languages are in use? Because I know LAMP, but this might be on Microsoft or MEAN. In which case I'll have found and cleaned up 3 projects and a resume for no reason. All the information needs to be presented upfront, I don't want to have to go looking for it.

jashkenas 10y ago
I believe it's somewhat flexible — as this post is for a new, small team (within Interactive News). So there's not necessarily a big existing codebase to maintain, and they're going to be working on some greenfield reporting tools. That said, we use a lot of JavaScript, a fair amount of R, a medium amount of Ruby, some Python, and occasionally Go. Stats skills are a plus, as are database skills, as are design chops.
wehere1 10y ago
lol wow you really missed the point
jeremyjbowers 10y ago
Hi! We're a mix of Python, Ruby, Node and the occasional bit of Go. We decided not to add that to the job description because we don't make our hiring decisions based on command of a particular language. If you have concerns, send me an email: jeremy.bowers@nytimes.com.

vinhboy 10y ago

I want to join the NYTimes and build a "chronicle" feature. I hate how news stories develop overtime, but there is nothing to "chronicle" the story from beginning to end. Linking to related stories is a temporary fix, but a standard timeline would be better. It should even motivate people to contribute to "follow-ups" on stories. Report what happened to the affected parties, where are they now, etc... This is in the interest of keeping people informed and engaged. Instead of endlessly chasing "breaking news" Take the "Oroville Dam" story for example. I would love to be able to subscribe to a timeline of updates as more unfold. A year from now, will there be a story about how the dam was fixed? How government money was spent? etc... Or whatever happened to those girls who were locked in that guy's basement? Whatever happened to them? Where are they now?

mcculley 10y ago
I've taken to keeping handy a link to "Current events" on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events) for this reason.
big_youth 10y ago
This is essential!! I recently purchased the domain cnnisfake.news to expose all the times the media releases a fake story. This thread and posts have inspired me to get it working!!
larubbio 10y ago
I had a similar idea, but wanted to build it outside of a single news organisation. Basically a news aggregator, but it would detect when different articles are about the same topic and try to tell if the newer article added anything to the story. This aggregation system would then track public interest in a story over time (based on clicks) along with media interest (based on new stories) I also wanted to add in user, publication and reporter 'leanings' by having a mechanism where users could say that they thought a story was left/right/neutral. The act of voting would count as a push having the affect of slightly moving the publication and reporter in one direction and the voter in another. I would then use an ELO type metric so a user who was very far in one direction wouldn't have the same impact as a user more in the center.

tptacek 10y ago

The irony of this is that it's March 1, and there's a hiring thread on the site today, which is where stuff like this belongs.

jashkenas 10y ago
Sorry about that — I think I posted it a few minutes before the hiring thread went up (or at least, a couple hours before I noticed it). I wasn't really expecting this listing to reach the front page — but I can understand that it did. There's been so much energy / handwringing / chatter in recent months about our increasingly post-factual era, governments' relationships with journalism, and possible technical remedies, that I thought this new team (which has some very sharp people on it) might strike a chord here.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It totally will! A text version of that site will probably wind up voted to the top of the hiring thread. :)
  - jashkenas 10y ago
    It's been in there for an hour+, and sits lonely at 2 points as of the writing of this sentence. So go figure!
- taylorbuley 10y ago
  Heads up that the mailbot is throwing out responses saying there's no jobs available. Because this was posted today, I'm sure if that means there are no longer any jobs available or the responder just hasn't been updated. > Thank you for your interest in Interactive News. We do not have open positions at this time but we would like to stay in contact with you as our hiring needs evolve.
  - jashkenas 10y ago
    Thanks for the headsup — I'll let them know. Edit: Bowers says that he's fixed it now.

suneilp 10y ago

What does "You know how to meet deadlines creatively and collaboratively." mean? Mostly the creatively part is what piqued my interest.

jashkenas 10y ago
To hazard a response, meeting a deadline creatively is knowing how best to trim, tweak and reimagine your concept to get in done in time. One of the most fun and different aspects about writing code in a newsroom is the extremely different timescales that are involved compared to normal programming. If you think it sounds like fun to sit down in front of a blank page of HTML with a fresh government dataset, RStudio, a copy of D3, a cup of coffee and 36 hours to see how good of an exploration and explanation you can come up with, this might be the job for you.
- jeremyjbowers 10y ago
  This is absolutely correct.
jeremyjbowers 10y ago
You know the saw about software development; if the features are fixed, flex the deadline. We're the opposite: We can't move a general election or we might have to respond to breaking news. We value your ability to make decisions about how to get a piece of software working quickly but without making it impossible to maintain. It requires creativity, and we think of it more of an art than a science.

TuringNYC 10y ago

I realize this does not answer the question, but I'd suggest helping ProPublica. They even have a GitHub acct w/ assets! https://github.com/propublica https://github.com/propublica