We’re doomed if we can’t hire more programmers
Cover from the Las Vegas Sun history project.
If it is possible for a conference session to be inspiring, awakening and frustrating in the same moment, this one was the one: The “Las Vegas Site Redesign” session at the Online News Association conference on Friday.
After the somewhat uninspiring keynote address by magazine guru Tina Brown, I went to the Las Vegas Sun session to hear the wunderkinds of the new Rob Curley empire in the desert talk about the race to market with new site. The session, predictably, was standing room only.
It confirmed for me something I have been saying for some time in my own shop and to anyone else who would listen: The newspaper industry can’t move fast enough unless it hires more programmers/software engineers. We. Have. The. Content. But without people to help us display it, manipulate it, update it and publish it more effectively, we’re doomed.
Within a year, the Las Vegas Sun planned, built and launched an incredible new site with:
- deep and rich weather information, customized for its location and time-specific skyline icons.
- amazing depth of content distribution through RSS, SMS, iTunes, video, and more.
- staggeringly rich and beautiful multimedia, including the widely praised “history of Las Vegas” project.
- tools to help the newsroom update and maintain the site, to easily produce multimedia content such as audio slideshows and more.
- tools to easily produce Google maps.
- a video partnership with local broadcasters and a breathtaking online and on-air prep sports highlight show — along with a host of other high-definition video projects.
And those are the ones I can remember here.
I also said the session was frustrating. Why? The speakers were new media projects editor Josh Williams and Sun editor Tyson Evans. They either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer questions about the business model at the Sun, where they said 40 people are on the online production, programming and editorial staff. Forty.
Surely it wouldn’t have surprised anyone at the Sun that online editors in this day and age would be interested to know who they plan to build and financially support their site. But Evans and Williams were downright dismissive about any questions along those lines. They weren’t the right people to ask, they said. Ashame.
Certainly, it would be nice to know for the rest of us how we could put development on a fast-track without breaking the bank — in other words, during a time when most newsrooms are shedding bodies as fast as they can. But the truth is, we need programmers more than we need journalists right now. And programmers with journalism experience, or at least journalistic sensibilities, would be ideal.
At the Sun, to their credit, they put their software engineers right next to their online editorial employees so they can be in at the start of a project. It means they can be in front of the project and anticipate needs that reporters and editors may have — before they know they have them. “Sometimes they build what we need before we ask for it,” Williams said.
Yes, we need them more than journalists. Really good technology can extend the power, reach and effectiveness of one journalist.
Comments
2 Comments on We’re doomed if we can’t hire more programmers
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Jim Durbin on
Sat, 13th Sep 2008 12:10 am
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Kurt on
Sat, 13th Sep 2008 11:53 pm
Great point Kurt. Getting developers, SEO experts, social media types, and the content producers together at the beginning of the product can create revolutionary change in a company.
That a newspaper gets is a sign that the industry may not be dead, but rather in need of fresh ideas on how to take full advantage of the medium.
Many papers, and many companies, hold back on designs because of legacy material, without thinking about the best way to utilize that content.
A good post - i’ll have to write about it.
Thanks, Jim. I hope my colleagues agree with me.
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