Anyone who doubts that technology skills matter in modern newsrooms should check out this job ad for a position in McClatchy’s Washington bureau:
If you are a visual storyteller, someone who sees the narrative in numbers, and thinks in code, this is your opportunity to make a mark. Expect your journalism skills to be as important as your programming skills. This editorial position will ask you to tell stories differently and inspire others to do the same.
The work will require advanced experience with HTML5, CSS, JavaScript (jQuery); an understanding of responsive design and proficiency with interaction design and user interfaces; familiarity with mining and manipulating data and Web scraping. Light Ruby or Python helpful. Responsibilities include producing daily and project-based digital journalism that will appear on the bureau’s McClatchyDC.com website and be integrated into other McClatchy desktop and mobile publishing products.
The laundry list of required programming languages and tech skills is eyeopening, but the most significant aspect of this ad is its edict to ” to tell stories differently and inspire others to do the same.” That should be a goal for all modern journalists, regardless of their job description.
Meg Heckman 