Tools, tech, and the newsroom: How the Washington Post does it

With 15 years of experience at the Washington Post, Greg Barber is pretty much a newsroom veteran, yet his work has never gotten old. At the Post, he’s had seven different roles, and he’s always been the first to hold each one. We caught up with Barber, who has been recently appointed director of Newsroom Product, to find out how a newsroom like the Post identifies, evaluates, and creates journalism tools, and to get some tips about what makes a good ‘newsroom bridge’.

After Mark Zuckerberg finally said he is ‘really sorry that this happened’, ‘this’ being the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook announced they will stop using data from third-party providers for ad targeting. Meanwhile, ‘innovation’ came in mysterious ways: Medium now directly offers cash bonuses to its best contributors, while arguments are made to put SEO first back again for traffic acquisition, as social media referrals are falling, and Google AMP traffic is growing.

Submissions to the Data Journalism Awards 2018 closed on 26 March 2018 and the competition, organised by the Global Editors Network, with support from the Google News Initiative, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Microsoft, and in partnership with Chartbeat, received 630 submissions of the highest standards from 58 countries. This is a new record high for the competition. Click below to see all the submitted projects. 

What we are up to

Work together Resources are shrinking in many newsrooms. But does that mean they need to give up on ambitious large-scale journalism projects, such as a year-long investigation or a high quality immersive experience? One solution could be collaboration. Facet is a platform where organisations can quickly establish partnerships, and have a shared workspace and tools. TARGO collaborates with media companies to develop high-quality immersive experiences. The winner of the fourth pitch battle is... Frames! Congratulations Vote now

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'Facebook, Google, Twitter and the rest keep insisting that they don’t want to be forced to decide what is true and what isn’t. I’m asking that they do more to help users be smart arbiters for themselves.' —Dan Gilmor, Medium ‘Getting someone to click over to an article on your website is one thing. Getting them to click on another story once they get there? That’s harder.’    — Christine Schmidt, Nieman Journalism Lab Why Al Jazeera taught young refugees how to tell their own stories in 360 degrees: Staff from Contrast VR, Al Jazeera's immersive media studio, took their kit to Jordan, training seven young people in spherical storytelling — Caroline Scott, Journalism.co.uk 'I do not believe we can — or should want to — back-button our way to a society before and without Facebook or social platforms or the net or for that matter trolls and Russian bots. We must recognize the reality of the world we live in today. We would be wise to take account of the many benefits these advances have brought. And we need to take responsibility together for using these new powers wisely.' — Jeff Jarvis, Whither News After identifying the problem of the relativity of news, Gille Raymond identified three different 'axes of relativity', responsible for whether facts turn into news, or not. —Gilles Raymond, Monday Note On-air, online, and on demand: The changing face of public radio membership — Anika Gupta, The Membership Puzzle Project 'Calling all visual thinkers: We are now accepting visual op-eds for publication in The New York Times Opinion section in print and online' — The New York Times