Programming is journalism, at least in Norway

Kelley Vendeland in Editors Weblog writes about efforts in the Norwegian press to bring in the programmers, to the newsroom. Epsen Anderson is modernizing Norway's public broadcasting through data-driven applications that make sense of complex information so that reporters can write more analytically about issues.

Andersen, who regularly designs new technology methods for "doing journalism", feels that "computer programming is also journalism." He is a strong advocate for making programming know-how a necessary and commonplace skill in a newsroom.

As Len Strazewski, my colleague and co-teacher in Online Publishing and Production for many years, and I learned, the way to the audience mind is through their pocketbook in many cases, so the story about taxes, or parking fines, or real-estate values, or school quality that encourages the audience to put in their zipcode, or address -- to customize the data-display for themselves -- so that the story gets personal. Sometimes journalism and teaching aren't so different after. The teacher maxim is "first get their attention."