Jekyll2024-03-04T09:42:37-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/feed.xmlNorthwestern University Knight LabNorthwestern University Knight Lab is a community of designers, developers, students, and educators working on experiments designed to push journalism into new spaces. The Lab provides an open, collaborative environment for interdisciplinary exploration and conversation, where students and professionals learn together and from one another. In short, we’re energized by hard questions worth answering; we believe in the process as much as the product.A Big Change That Will Probably Affect Your Storymaps2023-10-06T09:00:00-05:002023-10-06T09:00:00-05:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2023/10/06/storymapjs-update/storymapjs-update<p class="lead">A big change is coming to StoryMapJS, and it will affect many, if not most existing storymaps.</p>
<p>When making a storymap, one way to set a style and tone for your project is to set the “map type,” also known as the “basemap.” When we launched StoryMapJS, it included options for a few <a href="https://maps.stamen.com/#watercolor/12/37.7706/-122.3782">basemaps created by Stamen Design.</a> These included the “watercolor” style, as well as the default style for new storymaps, “Toner Lite.”</p>
<p>Stamen offered these map tiles at no cost to our users and the rest of the world, but providing them cost Stamen quite a bit of money. Earlier this year, they realized they could no longer provide the service, and <a href="https://stadiamaps.com/stamen/">worked out an agreement</a> with a map service provider called <a href="https://stadiamaps.com/">Stadia</a>. As a result, the terms of use for the maps are changing, and that will probably affect storymaps you’ve created.</p>
<p>While you should consult Stadia’s documentation for the details, the essence of the change is that Stadia will charge a monthly usage-based fee, although non-commercial users will be given a certain amount of usage before the fee begins to accumulate.</p>
<figure class="pull--left">
<img class="lazyload " data-src="/assets/posts/2023-10-06-storymap/stamen-tile-warning.jpeg" alt="A gray square overlaid with text reading 'These basemap tiles will no longer be available as of October 31, 2023. The site administrator can upgrade to the new map at stamen.com/faq'" />
<figcaption>Storymaps using the original Stamen basemaps will see this in place of some of the tiles on their storymaps.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The visible impact will be that, soon, some map tiles on Stamen basemaps will be replaced with a message explaining that the map needs to be reconfigured. The message reads “These basemap tiles will no longer be available as of October 31, 2023. The site administrator can upgrade to the new map at <a href="https://stamen.com/faq">stamen.com/faq</a>”. To keep using these basemaps, you’ll need to create an account with Stadia and reconfigure your storymap. You can also change your basemap to one of a few no-cost options, or switch to another provider.</p>
<p>The Stamen Watercolor map can be used for “free” in a way that will work for many people. In 2021, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum <a href="https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2021/10/06/maptiles-by-stamen-design/">acquired Watercolor Maptiles</a> and they provide them as a usable basemap service. These tiles will not be updated, but since the Watercolor tiles don’t have labels or political boundaries, it may not matter. Effective immediately, <code>Cooper Hewitt: Watercolor</code> is a choice in the “map type” menu of the “options” panel for any storymap. (<strong>Note:</strong> In our testing, we sometimes see some of the Cooper Hewitt watercolor tiles fail to load in the authoring tool, even though they seem to load fine in the published storymap and on the museum’s website. We’re not sure if this is a consistent problem, but if you see it, there’s probably nothing we can do about it. If you have a problem, we recommend choosing a different basemap.)</p>
<p>Of course, we continue to offer <code>OpenStreetMap: Standard</code> as another no-cost option. OpenStreetMap is now the default for newly created storymaps. For older storymaps, when no choice was specifically made, Stamen Toner Lite was used. For now, those storymaps will continue to use Stamen Toner Lite. If a time comes where the original Stamen basemaps completely fail to load, we will update StoryMapJS to use the OpenStreetMap for storymaps which haven’t been updated.</p>
<p>We continue to support maps served by <a href="https://www.mapbox.com">Mapbox.</a> Mapbox is another commercial service who charge a usage-based fee for using their basemaps. Their free-tier is available to all users, commercial and non-commercial alike. Mapbox provides a number of designs, and you can also use <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/mapbox-studio">Mapbox Studio</a> to customize your basemap.</p>
<p>For more complete details, see our <a href="https://storymap.knightlab.com/basemaps/">basemap documentation</a>. If you have more questions, <a href="https://knightlab.zendesk.com/anonymous_requests/new">use our tech support web form</a>.</p>Joe GermuskaA big change is coming to StoryMapJS, and it will affect many, if not most existing storymaps.Introducing AmyJo Brown, Knight Lab Professional Fellow2023-01-31T08:00:00-06:002023-01-31T08:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2023/01/31/amyjo-brown/amyjo-brown<p class="lead">AmyJo Brown, a veteran journalist passionate about supporting and reshaping local political journalism and who it engages, has joined the Knight Lab as a 2022-2023 professional fellow.</p>
<p>Her focus is on building The Public Ledger, a data tool structured from local campaign finance data that is designed to track connections and make local political relationships – and their influence – more visible.</p>
<p>“Campaign finance data has more stories to tell – if we follow the money,” Brown said.</p>
<p>An independent editor and founder of War Streets Media, Brown’s work is centered on the specific organizational challenges of doing good journalism at the local level. She consults with news leaders on sustainability issues and editorial strategies, and helps stand up new initiatives and develop talent.</p>
<p>Recent clients have included the American Press Institute, Spotlight PA, and the Texas Tribune, with project work related to <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/api-updates/api-launches-journalism-inclusion-index/">diversity and inclusion efforts</a>, designing and facilitating <a href="https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2022/02/spotlight-pa-state-college-bureau-ajp-lenfest/">stakeholder listening sessions</a>, and helping to manage <a href="https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2022/texas-2022-election-results/">elections coverage</a>. Other recent notable work includes developing and launching the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/627c29c0bcb7f5543e9f8ed1/t/627d35687db3d00c1c66b432/1652372841540/072621_2020_PMP_report.pdf">Pittsburgh Media Partnership</a>, a grant-funded collaborative of about two dozen local news organizations, and leading it through its first two years as its members grappled with the business challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>Brown has also been a member of the Democracy Fund’s <a href="https://localnewslab.org/2022/01/19/meet-the-ecosystem-builders-a-unique-group-of-leaders-transforming-local-news/">Ecosystem Builders</a> cohort since 2021, and was part of the 2019 cohort of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp3T7O9Aqyc">Take the Lead: 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism</a>. She is also a dedicated journalism teacher: An experienced adjunct instructor at the university level who frequently hosts workshops for professional journalists and volunteers at summer programs geared toward high school students.</p>
<p>“The Knight Lab wants to partner with professionals who are committed to advancing the craft of journalism,” said Medill professor and Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy Jeremy Gilbert. “The work AmyJo has already done to help make campaign finance data accessible for reporting and community members is impressive. The Lab is excited to help her build out The Public Ledger and scale access to this incredibly valuable information. We are lucky to have AmyJo’s energy and expertise as a part of the Knight Lab this year.”</p>
<p>Brown’s plan for The Public Ledger uses local campaign finance data and related public records as a base to build out a year-round backgrounding tool for reporters. It puts recent campaign finance data into a historical context, showing timing and changes in behavior and relationships from the donors’ point of view. The tool will also offer a public-facing view into the data.</p>
<p>The goal is to bring more transparency to where and how influence is being exerted behind the scenes. The tool is also designed to show journalists a more effective way to cover money in politics at the local level, where the government is the smallest and most direct.</p>
<p>“As an industry, our news coverage related to campaign finance data puts too much emphasis on the total dollars raised,” Brown said. “We need to be looking more closely at what the giving can tell us about relationships and power structures, particularly at the local level, where it works differently than it does at the national or state level.”</p>
<p>The work on The Public Ledger is also helping to establish a set of best practices for accessing local campaign finance data – which is hard to get.</p>
<p>“Local campaign finance data isn’t tracked as closely as it is on the state and national levels because in many – if not most – places outside of major metro areas, that data is still filed on paper,” Brown said. “Trying to make it useful is too costly for local news organizations – even though they know it can be a valuable reporting tool. I hope to help show it can be done and is worth the effort.”</p>
<p>Brown’s perspective is rooted in the experience she gained working as a local government and investigative reporter at publications of all sizes in widely disparate communities in the first half of her career. That approach has since been more fully informed by lessons learned designing and leading projects intended to help keep the lights on in local newsrooms.</p>
<p>The pilot project for The Public Ledger is focused on Pennsylvania’s second largest county, Allegheny, which is home to the city of Pittsburgh – Brown’s hometown.</p>AmyJo Brown, a veteran journalist passionate about supporting and reshaping local political journalism and who it engages, has joined the Knight Lab as a 2022-2023 professional fellow.Interactive Entertainment: How UX Design Shapes Streaming Platforms2022-05-31T09:00:00-05:002022-05-31T09:00:00-05:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2022/05/31/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms<p class="lead">As streaming develops into the latest age of entertainment, how are interfaces and layouts being designed to prioritize user experience and accessibility?</p>
<p>The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated streaming services becoming the dominant form of entertainment. There are a handful of new platforms, each with thousands of hours of content, but not much change or differentiation in the user journeys. For the most part, everywhere from Netflix to illegal streaming platforms use similar video streaming UX standards, and haven’t radically changed over the last decade.</p>
<p>As a mega-consumer of content, I’ve always been interested in how each platform and its affordances change the experience of consuming its content.This spring, I’ve examined different topics related to UX Design and Entertainment, combining my passions for human-centered design and media studies while building skills in design, prototyping, and research</p>
<p>My exploration of interactivity in entertainment began with the “pre-streaming age,” which for our current discussion just refers to the period from the mid-90s to the early 2010s. This age was dominated by physical media entertainment including the advent of the DVD menu.</p>
<p>I quickly realized why so many of my peers are nostalgic for DVD menus. DVDs were some of the first interfaces we as Gen Z interacted with. We learned on our own, but especially for content aimed and directed at children, the space of the DVD menu allowed for content creators to have fun with things like layouts and interactives, hiding easter eggs, including games, and more. I will never forget how <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAZFAIyoL2I">X-Men: The Last Stand</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAZFAIyoL2I"> menu</a> let users choose between the X-Men or the Mutant Brotherhood, setting the stakes of the story before you even press play.</p>
<p>These layouts are constrained by the limited input options. A remote often only has 5 inputs, 4 directional, and the 5th to select your choice. Due to this, all DVD menus would operate on an indication system having to ensure users knew which option they were currently on, leading to contrasting colors of text, underlines, outlines and more, which sometimes didn’t work as effectively as intended.</p>
<p>In his article<a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/dvd-menu-design-the-failures-of-web-design-recreated-yet-again/"> “DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again”</a> design titan Don Norman lists seven rules that DVD menus should adhere to in order to be more user-friendly. While his list is over 20 years old, I agree that some things like accessibility and development of industry standards are missing from this medium.</p>
<p>As a design challenge, I mocked up what whimsical DVD menus would look like for modern-day content and streaming platforms. For these mini-projects on Bridgerton and WandaVision, I tried to combine categorical standards of DVD menus with the technological affordances of today to create these mockups in Figma.</p>
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<figcaption>Mockup of Disney+ WandaVision, an array of televisions with different scenes from the show and options are available</figcaption>
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<source srcset="/assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/a45fdae6e9f8066cd3be4d029d4434ff-pasted_image_0/1366.png 1366w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/a45fdae6e9f8066cd3be4d029d4434ff-pasted_image_0/1024.png 1024w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/a45fdae6e9f8066cd3be4d029d4434ff-pasted_image_0/768.png 768w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/a45fdae6e9f8066cd3be4d029d4434ff-pasted_image_0/640.png 640w, " type="image/jpeg" />
<img class="" src="/assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/a45fdae6e9f8066cd3be4d029d4434ff-pasted_image_0/640.png" />
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<figcaption>DVD Menu Inspired layout of the Netflix series Bridgerton. A scene from the show is displayed with options on the bottom</figcaption>
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<p>Next I looked deeper into Subtitles as an intro to accessibility and the many ways that streaming platforms can make themselves for everyone. As someone who occasionally uses subtitles, I knew that for some people subtitles were a necessary and important aspect of consuming content.</p>
<p>As I began my research, it became clear that though subtitles often offer foreign language transcription, depending on the content and the service, you might not be able to have subtitles in your language of choice. While most services offer some of the widely spoken languages in the world on nearly every title, there are noticeable absences of major global languages like Hindi and Arabic. I know it may look different if I were accessing Netflix from different locations, it’s interesting to notice what services decide to offer in one of the largest subscriber bases.</p>
<p>Subtitles are one of the most prevalent accessibility considerations within media, and are often how foreign viewers consume American content. As streaming became more global with the massive success of titles like Parasite, Money Heist, and Squid Game, many Americans are now frequent users of subtitles.</p>
<p>Looking into research done on subtitles, a lot of literature is focused on making sure that the translations are accurate and not distracting from the content that already exists. An aspect that I couldn’t find a ton of research on was the visual accessibility of subtitles. Across my own analysis of what different services offered, only a few allowed me to have different sizes/colors/fonts for subtitles which is a key to allowing everyone to take part in media consumption.</p>
<p>Below, you’ll see a mockup of what an “ideal” subtitle menu layout could look like. I combined some industry standards with ideas of my own, including a potential duo subtitle layout, with multiple languages to help language learners. This idea was inspired by a talk with one of my friends who often watches content with their mom and while they both like subtitles, they can never agree on which language to have it set to.</p>
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<source srcset="/assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/731d3925f20e5079798bb9e8113289d9-pasted_image_0/1366.webp 1366w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/731d3925f20e5079798bb9e8113289d9-pasted_image_0/1024.webp 1024w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/731d3925f20e5079798bb9e8113289d9-pasted_image_0/768.webp 768w, /assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/731d3925f20e5079798bb9e8113289d9-pasted_image_0/640.webp 640w, " type="image/webp" />
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<img class="" src="/assets/posts/ux-design-of-streaming-platforms/731d3925f20e5079798bb9e8113289d9-pasted_image_0/640.png" />
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<figcaption>A Figma build of Subtitles over an episode of Survivor, options include different languages and an example of having both English and Spanish subtitles at the same time</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lastly, I wanted to get a better understanding of how the same platforms look and work across different screens. I’m always watching something on my phone, and usually multi-tasking while I’m cooking, cleaning, or doing work, but I know that everyone has a different preferred way to consume content. My key insight was that each screen provides different UX design affordances.</p>
<p>While you can access streaming services onto a multitude of different screens, the main three I looked at are smartphone apps, computer browser windows, and televisions. More important than screen size is the type of input, ranging from touch screens on phones, to computer cursors, and remotes for television.</p>
<p>Like DVD menus, the complexity of an interactive environment should be determined by the input constraints to create a smoother user experience. A great example of this concept is how video games always map button inputs so that users are aware of their capabilities!</p>
<p>Despite different input methods, all of these interfaces will look and work similarly to create a cohesive brand experience across different screens. For my weekly design challenge, I tried to come up with some conceptually distinct wireframe ideas to best highlight the different screens we most often consume media.</p>
<p>First, I wanted to address the television screen, despite its lofty goal of being an at-home theater experience, it is often being weighed down by the limited inputs capable via remote. If you’ve ever tried having to spell something out letter by letter on a tv screen, you understand. After toying with various ideas of voice control, to make the tv screen experience user-friendly, the actual tv interface should be simpler, and a cross-play system should be implemented where a streaming app on a phone can serve as a remote control.</p>
<p>For the touchscreen app, one aspect of interaction that no streaming platform has implemented is swiping. With the rise of Tinder and TikTok, swiping is not only a normalized action. Swiping would enable more promotional content with creators, actors, and more that are usually stored on third-party platforms like YouTube or TikTok.</p>
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<figcaption>Two basic wireframe mockups, one of a phone screen with swipe navigable content and one with a television screen including voice control options.</figcaption>
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<p>This project has opened my eyes to new potentials for innovation and design within an industry that is conceptually homogeneous for the majority of its interfaces. With concerns about the future of streaming services and not being able to grow subscribership indefinitely, competition relies on all aspects of a user’s experience, not solely content, but interactions, ads, subtitles, and so many more.</p>
<p><em>Max Johnson is an undergraduate senior in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. This story is part of “Interactivity in Media: UX Design in Entertainment” Max’s independent research study within the Knight Lab.</em></p>
<p class="note">Article image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@glenncarstenspeters">Glenn Carstens-Peters</a> used under <a href="https://unsplash.com/license">Unsplash license</a> (<a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/EOQhsfFBhRk">Unsplash</a>)</p>Max JohnsonAs streaming develops into the latest age of entertainment, how are interfaces and layouts being designed to prioritize user experience and accessibility?Innovación con colaboración2021-12-13T04:00:00-06:002021-12-13T04:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2021/12/13/journalism-ai-collab-2021-espa%C3%B1ol/journalism-ai-collab-2021-espa%C3%B1ol<p><em>Read this article in <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2021/12/13/journalism-ai-collab-2021/">English</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>¿Cómo podemos usar la inteligencia artificial para innovar las técnicas de reporteo y de periodismo de investigación?</em> Esta es la pregunta que convocó a un grupo de siete organizaciones periodísticas en América Latina y Estados Unidos, el grupo de las Américas del <strong>2021 JournalismAI Collab Challenges</strong>. Esta iniciativa de colaboración reúne a medios para experimentar con inteligencia artificial y periodismo.</p>
<p>Este año, <strong><a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/polis/JournalismAI">JournalismAI</a></strong>, un proyecto de Polis, la think-tank de periodismo de la London School of Economics and Political Science, y apoyado por la Google News Initiative, invitó al <strong>Knight Lab</strong> de la Universidad de Northwestern como aliado regional para las Américas. Nuestro rol fue facilitar la colaboración entre los participantes de la región.</p>
<p>Entre mayo y noviembre, periodistas de <a href="https://www.lanacion.com.ar/">La Nación</a> en Argentina, <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/">MuckRock</a> y <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/">Bloomberg News</a> en Estados Unidos, <a href="https://datacritica.org/">Data Crítica</a> en México, <a href="https://azmina.com.br/">AzMina</a> en Brasil, <a href="https://www.elclip.org/">CLIP</a> en América Latina, y <a href="https://ojo-publico.com/">Ojo Público</a> en Perú, trabajaron juntos en distintos proyectos colaborativos.</p>
<p>En equipos, los participantes exploraron formas en que las tecnologías de inteligencia artificial pueden ayudar a periodistas de investigación alrededor del mundo en su trabajo de investigar a los poderosos y reportear temas poco explorados.</p>
<p>Este camino de colaboración, experimentación e investigación se materializó en los proyectos:</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><strong><a href="#h.dfm3wcyrflwi">DockIns</a></strong>, para analizar grandes cantidades de documentos</li><li class="list-level-2"><strong><a href="#h.jd7m3n1wscf5">Monitor de discurso político misógino</a></strong>, para detectar violencia de género en redes sociales</li><li class="list-level-2"><strong><a href="#h.name0r296do0">From Above</a></strong>, centrado en analizar imágenes satelitales para investigar temas ambientales. </li></ul>
<p>Conoce más de estos proyectos y cómo se desarrollaron.</p>
<h2>Facilitando la colaboración y la experimentación</h2>
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<img class="" src="/assets/posts/journalism-ai-collab-2021-español/d01d8ed282d1df717e0e2f53c5994fdc-Untitled/640.png" />
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<figcaption>Captura de pantalla de la primera reunión del grupo de las Américas, 14 de mayo de 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Para el Collab, el Knight Lab creó un enfoque que ayudó a establecer un tono de flexibilidad y mente abierta para descubrir hacia dónde nos llevaba esta colaboración. Esto significó que los pasos a seguir no estaban preestablecidos: “el trabajo que hacemos se basa en el diseño que se centra en la persona (human-centered design). No tenemos respuesta a las preguntas que establecemos, pero tratamos de crear un proceso que permita a los participantes y a nosotros, los facilitadores, encontrar juntos las respuestas” señala Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Chair en Medios Digitales.</p>
<p>“Hay ocasiones en las que no existe un currículum para nuevas áreas de trabajo, así que parte de aprender algo nuevo es reconocer que estamos en una especie de frontera y que necesitamos explorar y descubrir juntos cómo encajan las cosas”, explica Joe Germuska, director del Knight Lab.</p>
<p>Al inicio del Collab, los participantes del grupo de las Américas y los facilitadores nos reunimos una vez a la semana durante un mes y medio. En estas sesiones, los participantes compartieron qué les trajo a esta colaboración, su experiencia y los retos que enfrentan al hacer periodismo. Juntos hicieron lluvias de ideas y discutieron proyectos que les interesaría desarrollar en los siguientes meses. Limitados a reunirnos sólo de manera virtual, estas conversaciones fueron diseñadas para que los participantes pudieran hablar con distintas personas en cada oportunidad posible.</p>
<figure>
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<source srcset="/assets/posts/journalism-ai-collab-2021-español/181151adbd5ad61ff704d48783117232-Untitled/1366.webp 1366w, /assets/posts/journalism-ai-collab-2021-español/181151adbd5ad61ff704d48783117232-Untitled/1024.webp 1024w, /assets/posts/journalism-ai-collab-2021-español/181151adbd5ad61ff704d48783117232-Untitled/768.webp 768w, /assets/posts/journalism-ai-collab-2021-español/181151adbd5ad61ff704d48783117232-Untitled/640.webp 640w, " type="image/webp" />
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<figcaption>Captura de pantalla que muestra uno de los pizarrones virtuales que se usaron para compartir ideas de posibles proyectos, 27 de mayo de 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Al final de estas sesiones, invitamos a los participantes a presentar propuestas de proyectos para el Collab. Se seleccionaron las tres ideas que se presentaron al grupo y cada persona eligió a qué equipo quería unirse. A partir de aquí, los equipos establecieron los avances que querían cumplir cada mes, e identificaron los aspectos técnicos y editoriales necesarios para lograrlos. También tuvieron reuniones semanales para discutir su progreso, los obstáculos que fueron encontrando en el camino y posibles soluciones. Una vez al mes todos los equipos, junto con el Knight Lab, tuvimos sesiones dedicadas a compartir actualizaciones sobre los proyectos y recibir retroalimentación.</p>
<p>Junto conmigo en el rol de gerente de proyecto, los integrantes del Knight Lab que han sido parte del Collab son <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremygilbert">Jeremy Gilbert</a>, profesor y Knight Chair en Medios Digitales en la Universidad de Northwestern; <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeGermuska">Joe Germuska</a>, director y Nerd en jefe del Knight Lab; y <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/people/scott-bradley/">Scott Bradley</a>, ingeniero senior.</p>
<h2>Los proyectos</h2>
<h3>DockIns</h3>
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<figcaption>Meme que el equipo DockIns incluyó en la presentación de su proyecto durante el 2021 JournalismAI Festival, 30 de noviembre de 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>El equipo <strong>DockIns</strong> abordó dos retos: 1) estructurar datos públicos que quedan ocultos en archivos en PDF, y 2) la realidad de que las soluciones de procesamiento natural de lenguaje (NLP por sus siglas en inglés) no son tan poderosas en otros idiomas como lo son inglés. Para esto, el equipo desarrolló el <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/dec/07/dockins-machine-learning-para-periodistas/">Proyecto DockIns</a> y la herramienta <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/nov/30/documentcloud-machine-learning-journalism/">SideKick</a>, una plataforma basada en machine learning que MuckRock había empezado a desarrollar, y que hospeda, lee, destaca información y clasifica documentos. Esta herramienta ha sido diseñada para ayudar a que periodistas interroguen grandes conjuntos de documentos en español y en inglés. También ayudará a automatizar la cobertura continua para la rendición de cuentas, para que los periodistas de investigación puedan monitorear tendencias y valores atípicos, en muchos documentos a la vez sin necesidad de muchos conocimientos técnicos, y sin configuración y mantenimiento complicados. SideKick se puede usar en la plataforma <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/home">DocumentCloud</a> o como una versión independiente de código abierto.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Ser parte del Collab es invertir en el presente para el futuro. Es aprender, colaborar y seguir avanzando.
</p>
<cite>Momi Peralta, La Nación (Equipo DockIns)</cite>
</blockquote>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/dec/07/dockins-machine-learning-para-periodistas/">Lee más acerca de Proyecto DockIns</a> (en inglés).</li><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/dec/07/como-correr-sidekick/">Lee la documentación de SideKick</a>.</li><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/dec/07/reconocimiento-de-entidades-ner-sobre-textos-en-es/">Lee Reconocimiento de Entidades (NER) sobre textos en español</a> </li></ul>
<p><strong>Participantes y organizaciones:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DAarambillet">Delfi Arambillet</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/rcarvajal85">Rigo Carvajal</a> (CLIP - Costa Rica), <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaudiaChavez_">Claudia Chávez</a> (Ojo Público - Perú), <a href="https://twitter.com/giancohs">Gianco Huamán</a> (Ojo Público - Perú), <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/staff/">Mitch Kotler</a> (MuckRock - Estados Unidos), <a href="https://twitter.com/morisy">Michael Morisy</a> (MuckRock - Estados Unidos), <a href="https://twitter.com/martinpascuadev">Martín Pascua</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/momiperalta">Momi Peralta</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/gjrossir">Gianfranco Rossi</a> (Ojo Público - Perú).</p>
<h3>Monitor de discurso político misógino</h3>
<p>El <strong>Monitor de discurso político misógino</strong> (Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor) se concibió con el propósito de investigar cómo la violencia de género se expande a través de redes sociales, especialmente en los casos que inicia o es estimulada por personajes políticos en Twitter. Este proyecto continúa el trabajo del <a href="https://azmina.com.br/projetos/monitora/">MonitorA</a>, creado por AzMina. El equipo desarrolló un modelo con procesamiento de lenguaje natural capaz de trabajar en portugués y español, para crear una forma más eficaz de automatizar el análisis de grandes cantidades de tweets y determinar si se trata de mensajes misóginos. El trabajo de etiquetar y entrenar el algoritmo para construir la herramienta llevó al equipo a colaborar con el investigador Iván Meza-Ruiz de Mexico, quien se sumó al esfuerzo para afinar el modelo de NLP. El resultado es la primera etapa de un prototipo que puede determinar si un tweet es misógino o no. En el futuro, el equipo pondrá la herramienta a disposición de otras personas interesadas en mapear la violencia de género en redes sociales.</p>
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<figcaption>Este gif muestra cómo funciona el prototipo del Monitor de discursos políticos misóginos. Fue parte de la presentación del proyecto durante el 2021 JournalismAI Festival, 30 de noviembre de 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>
Being at the Collab helped me to understand what pieces do we need to start... What I appreciate the most is building these networks, these communities. The real win is for the community. We now have a space for an innovative project.
</p>
<cite>José Luis Peñarredonda, CLIP (Equipo Monitor del discurso político misógino)</cite>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Participantes y organizaciones:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/feragru">Fer Aguirre</a> (Data Crítica - México), <a href="https://twitter.com/helldias000">Helena Bertho</a> (AzMina - Brasil), <a href="https://twitter.com/gabybouret">Gaby Bouret</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/baliborio">Bárbara Libório</a> (AzMina - Brasil), <a href="https://twitter.com/marinagamacubas">Marina Gama Cubas da Silva</a> (AzMina - Brasil), <a href="https://twitter.com/noalsilencio">José Luis Peñarredonda</a> (CLIP - Colombia).</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://github.com/fer-aguirre/pmdm">Explora el repositorio de proyecto en GitHub</a> (en inglés).</li></ul>
<h3>From Above</h3>
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<figcaption>Infográfico: A Journalist's Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>El equipo <strong>From Above</strong> inició su trabajo con el propósito de usar inteligencia artificial e imágenes satelitales para identificar indicadores visuales que ayuden a seguir historias. La elección de imágenes satelitales fue para sortear las barreras del idioma, experimentar con herramientas de código abierto y tener un enfoque diferente para investigar la pérdida de la biodiversidad en el planeta. Esta exploración también ha sido con la intención de desmitificar el uso de la inteligencia artificial y crear un mejor entendimiento de lo que significa usar algoritmos de visión por computadora y entrenar un modelo. El equipo navegó la emoción de aprender juntos con el reto del acceso limitado a imágenes de alta calidad. El proceso colectivo de aprendizaje y los retos que resolvieron en el camino motivaron la creación de la guía <a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">A Journalist’s Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Creo que es increíblemente valioso [ser parte del proyecto] porque todos tenemos un mejor entendimiento en este ámbito. Sabemos mejor lo que se puede y no se puede hacer.
</p>
<cite>David Ingold, Bloomberg News (Equipo From Above)</cite>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Participantes y organizaciones:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/fcoel">Flor Coehlo</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidIngold">David Ingold</a> (Bloomberg - US), <a href="https://twitter.com/mena_gibran">Gibrán Mena</a> (Data Crítica - México), <a href="https://twitter.com/mtronderos">María Teresa Ronderos</a> (CLIP - Colombia), <a href="https://twitter.com/shreya_vaidy">Shreya Vaidyanathan</a> (Bloomberg - Estados Unidos).</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">Lee </a><a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">A Journalist's Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling</a> (en inglés).</li><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://datacritica.github.io/FromAboveAI_guide/">Explora el repositorio de proyecto en GitHub</a> (en inglés).</li></ul>
<h3>Los aprendizajes</h3>
<p>El <strong>2021 JournalismAI Collab Challenges</strong> ha sido una oportunidad única para aprender cómo cada contexto trae consigo distintos retos para los periodistas de investigación, por ejemplo, diferentes niveles de acceso a recursos técnicos o las limitaciones del idioma. Sin embargo, al trabajar juntos es posible crear soluciones que ayuden a muchos, porque los problemas son muy similares y no pertenecen sólo a un país o a un continente. Y aunque en el periodismo de investigación no siempre es sencillo crear soluciones que puedan llevar la automatización a gran escala, trabajar juntos hacia la innovación sirve para establecer un camino más sencillo para todos. De esta experiencia, estas son las tres grandes lecciones del grupo de las Américas:</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2">Es mejor experimentar ahora para estar listo para el futuro. No todos los experimentos traen resultados positivos inmediatos. En ocasiones habrá que dejar reposar por un tiempo la experimentación, dejarlo marinar. Pero seguir experimentando te ayudará a estar listo para adoptar rápido nuevas tendencias.</li><li class="list-level-2">Permitir que el problema a resolver te guíe. Al trabajar en ciertas historias, tal vez ya tengas en mente qué herramientas o recursos específicos quieras utilizar. En la medida en que los obstáculos aparecen, debes estar listo para reformular tus preguntas e interrogar qué es lo que realmente quieres hacer. Esto tal vez te lleve a cambiar tu idea inicial, y empujarte a pensar creativamente para continuar experimentando. </li><li class="list-level-2">Y, sobre todo, ¡colaborar es la clave! </li></ul>
<p><a href="mailto:knightlab@northwestern.edu?subject=Follow-up+on+JournalismAI+Collab+2021+article+en+español">Mantente en contacto con el Knight Lab</a> si tienes interés en estas herramientas, y en colaboraciones e iniciativas similares como <a href="https://datadrivenreporting.medill.northwestern.edu/">The Data-Driven Reporting Project</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption>Ve la presentación del grupo de las Américas durante el 2021 JournalismAI Festival.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conoce <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/polis/JournalismAI/2021-Collab-Challenges">todos los proyectos</a> desarrollados por los participantes alrededor del mundo y <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpX7D4XQefACAy5DiuyjwY3sPDjSpA6F7">ve las sesiones</a> del 2021 JournalismAI Festival.</p>Mago TorresRead this article in English.Innovation with collaboration2021-12-13T04:00:00-06:002021-12-13T04:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2021/12/13/journalism-ai-collab-2021/journalism-ai-collab-2021<p><em>Lee este artículo en <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2021/12/13/journalism-ai-collab-2021-espa%C3%B1ol/">español</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>How might we use AI technologies to innovate newsgathering and investigative reporting techniques?</em> This was the question we posed to a group of seven newsrooms in Latin America and the US as part of the Americas Cohort during the <strong><a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/polis/JournalismAI/2021-Collab-Challenges">2021 JournalismAI Collab Challenges</a></strong>. The Collab is an initiative that brings together media organizations to experiment with AI technologies and journalism.</p>
<p>This year, <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/polis/JournalismAI">JournalismAI</a>, a project of Polis, the journalism think-tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and powered by the Google News Initiative, invited the Knight Lab to be the regional partner in the Americas to facilitate the collaboration between the participants from the Western Hemisphere.</p>
<p>From May to November, the participants from <a href="https://www.lanacion.com.ar/">La Nación</a> in Argentina, <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/">MuckRock</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/">Bloomberg News</a> in the US, <a href="https://datacritica.org/">Data Crítica</a> in México, <a href="https://azmina.com.br/">AzMina</a> in Brazil, <a href="https://www.elclip.org/">CLIP</a> in Latin America, and <a href="https://ojo-publico.com/">Ojo Público</a> in Perú worked in three different collaborative project teams.</p>
<p>The teams explored ways in which artificial intelligence technologies can support investigative journalists around the world in their work holding the powerful accountable, and shining light on underreported issues.</p>
<p>The journey of collaboration, experimentation and research materialized in the projects:</p>
<ul><li><a href="#h.847ocgxbnn03">DockIns</a>, to analyze large sets of documents </li><li>The <a href="#h.kyctiohb8li0">Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor</a>, to detect gender violence in social media </li><li><a href="#h.jjdd9430u767">From Above</a>, centered in the analysis of satellite imagery for reporting on environmental issues. </li></ul>
<p>This is the story of the Americas Cohort’s work.</p>
<h2>Facilitating collaboration and experimentation</h2>
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<figcaption>Screenshot of the first meeting of the Americas Cohort, May 14, 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the Collab, the Knight Lab created an approach that helped to set the tone of a flexible and open mindset to see where the journey will lead. This meant that the path of experimentation was not pre-established: “the work we do is rooted in human-centered design processes, we don’t answer the questions that we pose, but we try to create a process that enables participants and us, facilitators, to figure out the answers together”, says Jeremy Gilbert, Medill’s Knight Chair in Digital Media.</p>
<p>“When there are new areas sometimes there isn’t really a curriculum, so part of learning something new is acknowledging that it is kind of a frontier that there is a need to explore and discover how things fit together” explains Joe Germuska, director of the Knight Lab.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the Collab, the Americas Cohort’s participants and facilitators met once a week for a month a half. During these sessions, participants shared what brought them to the Collab, their experience, and the journalism challenges they have. They brainstormed ideas and discussed projects that they would be interested in exploring during the following months. Because of the limitation of connecting remotely, these conversations were intentionally designed for participants to talk with different people at every opportunity.</p>
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<figcaption>This screenshot shows one of the boards used by the participants to brainstorm project ideas, May 27, 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of this period, participants were invited to pitch ideas they wanted to pursue. All three ideas presented to the group were selected, and every individual participant chose which team they wanted to join. From here, the teams set monthly milestones and identified the technical and editorial work needed to achieve them. They also had weekly meetings to discuss their progress, roadblocks, and solutions. Once a month, all the teams met together, along with the Knight Lab team, in sessions dedicated to sharing updates and feedback across projects.</p>
<p>Along with me as a project manager for the JournalismAI Collab Challenges in the Americas, the Knight Lab team members that guided this process are <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremygilbert">Jeremy Gilbert</a>, Professor, Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy; <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeGermuska">Joe Germuska</a>, Director and Chief Nerd; and <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/people/scott-bradley/">Scott Bradley</a>, Senior Engineer.</p>
<h2>The projects</h2>
<h3>DockIns</h3>
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<figcaption>Meme used by Team DockIns in the presentation of their project at the 2021 JournalismAI Festival, November 30, 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Team <strong>DockIns</strong> tackled two challenges. 1) trying to structure public data that is usually hidden in PDFs, and 2) the reality that natural language processing (NLP) solutions are not as powerful in other languages as they are in English. For this, the team developed <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/project/dockins-machine-learning-on-deadline-for-journalists-1052/">Project DockIns</a> and the tool <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/nov/30/documentcloud-machine-learning-journalism/">SideKick</a>, a machine learning platform that hosts, reads, gives insights, and classifies documents. This tool has been designed to help journalists to interrogate large sets of documents in both English and Spanish, and will help automate ongoing accountability coverage so that watchdog reporters can monitor for trends, outliers, and insights in even the largest document collections without intensive technical training or complicated setup and maintenance. SideKick can work using the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/home">DocumentCloud</a> platform or as an open-source stand-alone version.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Being part of the Collab is an investment from the present to the future. It is to learn, to collaborate, and to continue moving forward
</p>
<cite>Momi Peralta, La Nación (Team DockIns)</cite>
</blockquote>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/project/dockins-machine-learning-on-deadline-for-journalists-1052/">Read about Project Dockins</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/nov/30/documentcloud-machine-learning-journalism/">Read SideKick’s documentation</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/nov/30/testing-two-named-entity-recognition-models-spanis/">Read </a><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2021/nov/30/testing-two-named-entity-recognition-models-spanis/">Testing two Named Entity Recognition models on Spanish documents</a>. </li></ul>
<p><strong>Participants and organizations:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DAarambillet">Delfi Arambillet</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/rcarvajal85">Rigo Carvajal</a> (CLIP - Costa Rica), <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaudiaChavez_">Claudia Chávez</a> (Ojo Público - Perú), <a href="https://twitter.com/giancohs">Gianco Huamán</a> (Ojo Público - Perú), <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/staff/">Mitch Kotler</a> (MuckRock - US), <a href="https://twitter.com/morisy">Michael Morisy</a> (MuckRock - US), <a href="https://twitter.com/martinpascuadev">Martín Pascua</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/momiperalta">Momi Peralta</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/gjrossir">Gianfranco Rossi</a> (Ojo Público - Perú).</p>
<h3>Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor</h3>
<p>The <strong>Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor</strong> was conceived with the purpose of investigating how gender violence is spread in social media, especially in the cases where it is initiated or stimulated by political figures on Twitter. This team has been building up from the project <a href="https://azmina.com.br/projetos/monitora/">MonitorA</a>, previously developed by AzMina. The team developed a natural language processing (NLP) model capable of working in both Portuguese and Spanish to create a more effective way to automate the process of analyzing large amounts of tweets and determine if those are misogynistic messages. The work of tagging and training the algorithm to build the tool led the team to collaborate with researcher Iván Meza-Ruiz from Mexico, who joined efforts to help fine-tune the NLP model. The result is the first stage of a prototype that can tell if a tweet is misogynistic. In the future, the team will make the tool available for others interested in mapping gender violence in social media.</p>
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<figcaption>This gif shows how the Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor prototype works. It was part of the presentation of their project at the 2021 JournalismAI Festival, November 30, 2021.</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>
Being at the Collab helped me to understand what pieces we need to start... What I appreciate the most is building these networks, these communities. The real win is for the community. We now have a space for an innovative project.
</p>
<cite>José Luis Peñarredonda, CLIP (Team Political Misogynistic Discourse Monitor)</cite>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Participants and organizations:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/feragru">Fer Aguirre</a> (Data Crítica - México), <a href="https://twitter.com/helldias000">Helena Bertho</a> (AzMina - Brazil), <a href="https://twitter.com/gabybouret">Gaby Bouret</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/baliborio">Bárbara Libório</a> (AzMina - Brazil), <a href="https://twitter.com/marinagamacubas">Marina Gama Cubas da Silva</a> (AzMina - Brazil), <a href="https://twitter.com/noalsilencio">José Luis Peñarredonda</a> (CLIP - Colombia).</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://github.com/fer-aguirre/pmdm">Explore</a> the GitHub repository.</li></ul>
<h3>From Above</h3>
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<figcaption>Infographic: A Journalist's Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Team <strong>From Above</strong> started working together with the purpose of using artificial intelligence and satellite imagery to identify visual indicators to chase stories. The selection of satellite imagery was to go around language barriers, experiment with open source tools, and have a different approach to both understand and investigate biodiversity loss on the planet. Their exploration was also with the intention of demystifying AI and creating a better understanding of what it means to use computer vision algorithms and to train a model. The team navigated the excitement of learning together with the challenge of limited access to high-quality images. The collective learning process and the ups and downs motivated the creation of <a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">A Journalist’s Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
I think it's incredibly valuable [being in the project] because I think everybody that is involved now has a much better understanding of the space. We all have a much better understanding of what can and can't be done.
</p>
<cite>David Ingold, Bloomberg News (Team From Above)</cite>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Participants and organizations:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidIngold">David Ingold</a> (Bloomberg - US), <a href="https://twitter.com/fcoel">Flor Coehlo</a> (La Nación - Argentina), <a href="https://twitter.com/mena_gibran">Gibrán Mena</a> (Data Crítica - México), <a href="https://twitter.com/mtronderos">María Teresa Ronderos</a> (CLIP - Colombia), <a href="https://twitter.com/shreya_vaidy">Shreya Vaidyanathan</a> (Bloomberg - US).</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">Read </a><a href="https://aifromabove.notion.site/aifromabove/A-Journalist-s-Guide-to-using-AI-Satellite-Imagery-for-Storytelling-c32a310269124f069da96b73e872e574">A Journalist's Guide to using AI + Satellite Imagery for Storytelling</a>.</li><li class="list-level-2"><a href="https://datacritica.github.io/FromAboveAI_guide/">Explore the GitHub repository</a></li></ul>
<h2>The learnings</h2>
<p>The <strong>2021 JournalismAI Collab Challenges</strong> has been a unique opportunity to learn about how each context creates different challenges for investigative journalists, like different levels of access to resources, or language limitations. Nevertheless, when working together it is possible to create solutions that help many, because the problems to investigate are very similar, and don’t belong to one country or one continent.</p>
<p>While in investigative journalism it is not always straightforward to create solutions that can bring automation at a great scale, working towards innovation together can set an easier path for everyone. These are three of the big lessons from the Americas Cohort:</p>
<ul><li>Better to experiment now to be ready for the future. Not all experiments will bring positive results, it could happen that you will store your experimentation for a while, let it marinate, but doing it now will help you to be an early adopter soon.</li><li>Let the problem lead you. When working on a story, you may want to have specific tools or resources, but as obstacles start appearing, reframe your questions, interrogate what you really are looking for, this can lead to changing your first approach, and push you to think creatively out of the box to continue experimenting. </li><li>And, overall, <strong>collaboration is the key!</strong></li></ul>
<p><a href="mailto:knightlab@northwestern.edu?subject=Follow-up+on+JournalismAI+Collab+2021+article">Get in touch with the Knight Lab</a> if you’re interested in these tools, and similar collaborations and initiatives like <a href="https://datadrivenreporting.medill.northwestern.edu/">The Data-Driven Reporting Project</a>.</p>
<figure>
<div class="embed embed-16by9">
<iframe class="embed-item lazyload" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wBJ9KbR-yWQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<figcaption>See the presentation of the Americas Cohort during the 2021 JournalismAI Festival.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can explore all the projects developed by the participants from around the globe in the sessions of the 2021 JournalismAI Festival on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpX7D4XQefACAy5DiuyjwY3sPDjSpA6F7">youtube channel</a> of Polis at LSE.</p>Mago TorresLee este artículo en español.AI, Automation, and Newsrooms: Finding Fitting Tools for Your Organization2021-12-07T08:00:00-06:002021-12-07T08:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2021/12/07/ai,-automation,-and-newsrooms-finding-fitting-tools-for-your-organization/ai,-automation,-and-newsrooms-finding-fitting-tools-for-your-organizationHannah BartonYes, Product Thinking Can Save Journalism. Six Reasons Why News Media Need Product Thinkers.2020-11-23T04:00:00-06:002020-11-23T04:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/23/product-thinking-can-save-journalism-product-management-news-media/product-thinking-can-save-journalism-product-management-news-media<p class="lead"><a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">Knight Lab’s series</a> on product thinking in media started with a question: “<a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/journalism-disrupted-can-product-thinking-save-it/index.html">Journalism Has Been Disrupted. Can Product Thinking Save It?</a>” After more than 25 years in digital publishing—and as the editor for the series—I think the answer is “Yes.”</p>
<p>In fact, I would go further. Product thinking is the most important mindset for media companies to embrace today. For news organizations, especially, product thinking is the best way—or only way—to ensure that you are reaching and engaging people, and building a sustainable future.</p>
<p>Here are six reasons why news organizations need product thinkers—and a product-thinking culture.</p>
<h2>1. Journalists are learning to accept that publications, websites and apps are, in fact, products.</h2>
<p>When I started teaching media product development at the <a href="https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/">Medill School</a> at Northwestern University, I would tell students that I was uncomfortable calling a newspaper a “product.” That’s because for me, newspapers—and journalism—were my career, my calling and my passion. To call a newspaper or a website a product somehow seemed to equate it to macaroni and cheese.</p>
<p>“Media product development” seemed dry and not aspirational enough. That’s why, when we launched a <a href="https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/graduate-journalism/specializations/media-innovation-and-content-strategy/index.html">master’s program</a> focusing on that space, I recommended it be called “media innovation” instead.</p>
<p>Slowly but surely, though, “product” is becoming the accepted shorthand for an emerging discipline that’s now essential in media and journalism companies. The first conference for product thinkers in journalism, <a href="https://product.srccon.org/">SRCCON:Product</a>, was held in February. And there’s a brand-new organization, the <a href="https://newsproduct.org/">News Product Alliance</a>, that is becoming a home for the people who do this work.</p>
<p>And let’s face it: a website or email newsletter or mobile app is a product. People have to decide whether to use it, and they have an infinite number of choices. Every media product competes with every other media product—and lots of other things—for people’s time and attention.</p>
<p>How do you make a successful product? You understand people’s needs, find ways to meet them that competitors aren’t addressing, make people aware of your product, deliver it to them—and do all of this while figuring out how to bring in more money than it costs to produce.</p>
<p>Just like macaroni and cheese, a media product can be successful only if it meets people’s needs, provides them with value and is profitable. So let’s be proud that we make media products and that we can figure out how to make them successful.</p>
<h2>2. Product thinking isn’t new to journalism. In fact, it’s what media innovators have always done.</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">public domain</figcaption>
<figcaption>Poor Richard's Almanack, published by Benjamin Franklin, was a huge seller in the American colonies.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I started working in newspaper newsrooms in the late 1970s, it was easy to think that our job was limited to reporting, storytelling and page design. We didn’t need product thinking; our jobs were entirely about the content.</p>
<p>But that’s because newspapers were a fully mature industry by then—the newspaper as a product had been perfected over (literally) two centuries. From city to city, newspapers were far more alike than different. And their business models were also mature: Once a day, assemble a one-size-fits-all print publication, distribute it to as many homes as you can (with subscription prices as low as possible), and watch the money roll in from advertisers who had no better way to get their messages to people in your community.</p>
<p>But if you go back to different eras in media history, you see that “product thinking” was how successful media products were invented:</p>
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<figcaption>John H. Johnson created Ebony magazine.</figcaption>
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<ul><li class="list-level-1">Benjamin Franklin built a hugely successful publication in colonial America: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack">Poor Richard’s Almanack</a>, by combining traditional almanac content (weather forecasts, household hints, puzzles) with his witty aphorisms like “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead” and “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Franklin’s almanac was one of the top-selling publications in the U.S. colonies.</li><li class="list-level-1">In 1830s New York, the founders of the “penny press”—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Day_(publisher)">Benjamin Day</a> (New York Sun), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Greeley">Horace Greeley</a> (New York Tribune) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gordon_Bennett_Sr.">James Gordon Bennett</a> (New York Herald)—reinvented the newspaper and established a business model that remained with us for 150-plus years. Taking advantage of new technology (faster presses and cheaper paper), they were able to offer a paper for just a penny a copy and generate most of their revenue through advertising.</li><li class="list-level-1">In the 20th century, magazine pioneers like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Johnson">John H. Johnson</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebony_(magazine)">Ebony</a>), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gurley_Brown">Helen Gurley Brown</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_(magazine)">Cosmopolitan</a>) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jann_Wenner">Jann Wenner</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone">Rolling Stone</a>) built thriving publications—and businesses—based on insights that there were media consumers with unmet content needs and advertisers who wanted to reach them.</li></ul>
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<figcaption>A Cosmopolitan cover from 1965, when Helen Gurley Brown became its editor.</figcaption>
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<p>Over and over again, we’ve seen entrepreneurial product thinkers figure out audience needs, build winning media products supported by viable business models. At a time when journalism faces both threats and opportunities, we need people who think good journalism is important and can figure out how to make engaging and financially sustainable media products.</p>
<h2>3. In the mass media era, product thinking didn’t have to be part of journalism. But they are closely connected in the digital age.</h2>
<p>As a young person entering a journalism career in the early 1980s, one of the things I liked about my job was that I could be idealistic about what I was doing. I did what I did because it was important that the public be informed, and I didn’t have to participate in the part of the newspaper business that involved selling (ads or subscriptions) or making money. I thought it was great that there was a “Chinese wall” between the newsroom and the business side.</p>
<p>Most of my newsroom colleagues and I were blissfully ignorant of the company’s finances—until our corporate parents started trying to increase profits by reducing newsroom expenses, and we thought they were being unethical.</p>
<p>Only in hindsight did I come to realize that what I perceived as normal was just a historical accident. When I started working at metropolitan newspapers, it happened to be a time when most papers were regional monopolies able to keep raising ad prices way faster than inflation—and run up profit margins of 20, 30, 40 and even 50 percent. Profits were even higher at local TV stations, which also earned monopoly profits by selling ads to businesses that had few options for reaching a large share of a region’s residents.</p>
<p>In those days, journalists didn’t need to worry about where the money was coming from. It poured into our companies, there was more of it every year, and the biggest threat we perceived wasn’t the competition, but from greedy CEOs who wanted profits to rise even more.</p>
<p>So we journalists were perfectly happy focusing on the reporting and storytelling—and letting departments outside the newsroom do the work of delivering the product, marketing it, and communicating with our audience. (Truth be told, most of us didn’t much like our readers—even after we all got email addresses, we resisted making them public.)</p>
<p>Needless to say, the world is different now.</p>
<p>News is no longer subsidized by an enormously profitable advertising business. In fact, it now appears that the most promising business model to support journalism is finding readers who care enough to pay for it.</p>
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<p>
We journalists were perfectly happy focusing on the reporting and storytelling—and letting departments outside the newsroom do the work of delivering the product, marketing it, and communicating with our audience.
</p>
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<p>Finding and maximizing the audience for our product is no longer the job of other people, like marketing and circulation departments. Now it’s journalists—social media managers, audience development specialists, engagement editors, etc.—who are doing the equivalent work on digital platforms.</p>
<p>And our companies can no longer thrive with a single product that was largely perfected decades or even centuries ago. With rapidly evolving technologies, enormous generational shifts in audience behavior, and platforms open enough to keep attracting waves of competition, media companies must learn to understand people’s evolving needs and constantly be inventing or improving products to address those needs.</p>
<p>Which is what product thinking is all about.</p>
<h2>4. Proven methodologies for successful product development now exist.</h2>
<p>When I was named the first online director for The Miami Herald in 1995, I thought I was going to be the editor of a new publication, the “Internet edition” of our newspaper. And we thought we could build a substantial audience—and successful online business—relying on the same stories we’d been publishing in print.</p>
<p>We quickly discovered that our content model—a little bit of information about a lot of things, but not very deep—was totally wrong for the World Wide Web. Every single thing the newspaper offered, with the exception of local reporting, would be done with greater speed and/or depth by a digital-first company. While the print edition was once a Miami resident’s source of national or international news, the Herald online was competing with The New York Times, Yahoo! or CNN. And while we essentially had a monopoly on print advertising for cars, homes and jobs in Miami, digital startups quickly were competing successfully with us for that business.</p>
<p>We tried to build and launch new products to fight off those competitors and find new business opportunities: a tourism guide, services for car shoppers and home buyers, an entertainment guide. But there was nowhere to go to learn how to do product development, build technology, or understand the needs of users.</p>
<p>What we needed was a toolkit that hadn’t been invented—three bundles of strategies and tactics that came along later:</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-1"><a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/guide_to_journalism_and_design.php">Human-centered design</a>, or design thinking: Techniques for interviewing and observing users, developing insights into their needs, and testing product concepts and prototypes with them.</li><li class="list-level-1"><a href="http://mediashift.org/2014/01/the-j-school-scrum-bringing-agile-development-into-the-classroom/">Agile software development</a>: Approaches for building software in small chunks and testing them with users during the development process</li><li class="list-level-1"><a href="https://itsadeliverything.com/journalism-portal-my-lean-startup-in-the-bbc">“Lean” product development</a>: Investing resources incrementally as you test and learn, and prioritizing revenue generation in the process.</li></ul>
<p>These are the pillars of product thinking. <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">Knight Lab’s series</a> on product work in media includes two case studies (on <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/11/newsday-mobile-local-alerts-product-thinking-case-study/">local news alerts at Newsday</a> and <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/18/south-africa-daily-maverick-print-newspaper-product-thinking-case-study/index.html">a weekly print publication for the Daily Maverick</a> in South Africa) that illustrate how product thinking works in practice.</p>
<h2>5. New product-centered journalism careers are emerging.</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">Daily Maverick</figcaption>
<figcaption>In South Africa, the Daily Maverick's weekly print edition, was developed with a product-thinking approach.</figcaption>
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<p>News organizations now employ design researchers, audience development specialists, software engineers—and, increasingly, product managers. These job titles have long been common in technology companies (though non-media companies usually label as “marketing” what news organizations call “audience development”). Media companies are coming to the realization that if they deliver their content digitally, they need to become technology companies.</p>
<p>Product managers are particularly important. As explained in <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/journalism-disrupted-can-product-thinking-save-it/">part 1 of this series</a>, the field of product management developed first in tech companies but is now taking root in media as well.</p>
<p>In a software-enabled business—a category that now includes media organizations—product managers are essential. They are charged with coordinating the work of software engineers while keeping the product “roadmap” aligned with customer needs and business strategy.</p>
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<figcaption>Becca Aaronson, interim president of the News Product Alliance.</figcaption>
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<blockquote>
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Product management in news is different than in technology and other industries, because we have the added challenge of integrating journalism ethics and our editorial mission into our overall product strategy.
</p>
<cite>Becca Aaronson, interim president of the News Product Alliance</cite>
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<p>Journalism needs great product managers. This series explains the <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/13/skills-for-great-product-thinkers/index.html">skills, experiences and mindsets</a> – and <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/16/product-manager-mindset-emotional-intelligence-enables-success/index.html">emotional intelligence</a> – that product managers need, as defined by media product managers themselves.</p>
<p>But it’s not only product managers who can be product thinkers. There are more than 1,000 people who’ve signed up to be part of the <a href="https://newsproduct.org/#signup">News Product Alliance</a>. Some are product managers; others are doing the work of product managers at organizations that haven’t created that formal job role yet. And some are journalists who now see themselves as product thinkers, whatever their title is.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/media-innovation/milabjournal/newsproduct2020.html">A recent survey of almost 300 product thinkers</a> working in journalism found that they had a wide variety of titles. About a third had the word “product” in them, but other titles included “audience,” “editor,” “community,” “data” and “Innovation.”</p>
<p>In a news organization, product work is different than in other kinds of companies. News product thinkers have to understand journalism—its culture, values and ethics.</p>
<p>That’s a key reason why so many news product people started their careers as journalists—and why it can be challenging for product specialists from other industries to move into our field.</p>
<p>“Product management in news is different than in technology and other industries, because we have the added challenge of integrating journalism ethics and our editorial mission into our overall product strategy,” said Becca Aaronson, interim president of the News Product Alliance.</p>
<p>That may be why many news product professionals believe journalism schools need to teach product management and product thinking. In the “<a href="https://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/media-innovation/milabjournal/newsproduct2020.html">State of the News Product Community 2020</a>” survey, 87 percent of news product thinkers agreed with the statement, “Journalism schools should include product management topics in curriculum.”</p>
<p>And it’s starting to happen. There are a growing number of universities that are offering degrees or courses to prepare journalism-trained product thinkers. For instance: <a href="https://medium.com/journalism-innovation/how-our-journalism-creators-program-is-taking-flight-aee0d7aca346">The City University of New York</a>, <a href="https://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/degrees-programs/digital-media-innovation.html">Texas State University</a>, the <a href="https://journalismdesign.com/">New School</a> and my own school, the <a href="https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/graduate-journalism/specializations/media-innovation-and-content-strategy/index.html">Medill School at Northwestern University</a>.</p>
<h2>6. Product thinking in news still has a long way to go.</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">The State of the News Product Community 2020</figcaption>
<figcaption>Survey respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with these statements about product work. While 62 percent said product management is "central" to their organizations, respondents indicated concern about their future career opportunities and growth.</figcaption>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/media-innovation/milabjournal/newsproduct2020.html">State of the News Product Community 2020</a> survey (written up by Prof. <a href="https://www.masscomm.txstate.edu/people/faculty/cindy-royal.html">Cindy Royal</a> of Texas State University). suggests that product thinking is not yet fully embraced at many organizations where the survey respondents work. I found that worrisome given the threats journalism faces and the challenges their organizations have to navigate in the digital realm.</p>
<p>The survey findings do suggest that these organizations have evolved significantly. Almost two-thirds of the respondents said their specific positions didn’t exist five years ago.</p>
<p>Among the findings that I found most concerning:</p>
<ul><li class="list-level-1">The survey respondents are not sure their organizations—or the journalism industry—are a place where they can build a future. Only 18 percent agreed with the statement “I have a clearly defined path in my organization.” Only 21 percent agreed, “The journalism industry provides career development support for my role.” Only 31 percent felt that in their next career move, “I will most likely be able to advance within my current organization.”</li><li class="list-level-1">News product thinkers face substantial challenges, including “not enough resources” (58 percent of respondents), “not enough strategic direction” (48 percent), “misalignment on vision/goals” (45 percent) and “breakdown in communication between departments” (44 percent).</li><li class="list-level-1">Product thinkers want to learn more. Almost six in 10 listed “career development” as their top need for additional skills. The next two areas listed were “organizational management” and “cultural change”—which I see as indicators of frustration with the challenges of getting their organizations to fully embrace product thinking. </li><li class="list-level-1">Organizational structures are not mature. While more than half of the respondents said their organizations had a dedicated product team, 13 percent of respondents didn’t answer this question and another 13 percent chose, “Not sure” or “I think people are doing this work without the titles or resources.”</li><li class="list-level-1">At a time when news organizations clearly need to connect with all kinds of users, news product workers are overwhelmingly white. Seventy percent identified as white, with Black, Asian and LatinX respondents each making up less than 10 percent of the survey takers. The respondents were about evenly split between men and women.</li></ul>
<p>The report concluded:</p>
<p>“Product management introduces a profound shift in the mission of journalism, from a culture of reporting and editing on limited platforms to one that is focused on building trust by representing communities and solving problems across products.”</p>
<p>I agree. Product thinking can be transformative for journalism. This transformation is desperately needed if journalism is to survive and thrive.</p>
<p class="note">This article is the last of <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">a series</a> exploring product thinking as an emerging discipline in journalism and media. We appreciate the contributions of the other authors: Medill MSJ alum Meredith Gallo (<a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/journalism-disrupted-can-product-thinking-save-it/index.html">part 1</a>, <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/13/skills-for-great-product-thinkers/index.html">part 3</a>, <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/16/product-manager-mindset-emotional-intelligence-enables-success/index.html">part 4</a> and <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/20/advice-for-engineers-programmers-moving-into-product-in-media/index.html">part 6</a>), Ryan Restivo of Newsday (<a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/11/newsday-mobile-local-alerts-product-thinking-case-study/index.html">part 2</a>) and Styli Charalambous of the Daily Maverick (<a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/18/south-africa-daily-maverick-print-newspaper-product-thinking-case-study/index.html">part 5</a>).</p>Rich GordonKnight Lab’s series on product thinking in media started with a question: “Journalism Has Been Disrupted. Can Product Thinking Save It?” After more than 25 years in digital publishing—and as the editor for the series—I think the answer is “Yes.”Attention Software Developers! Media Organizations Need You – Here’s What to Expect2020-11-20T08:00:00-06:002020-11-20T08:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/20/advice-for-engineers-programmers-moving-into-product-in-media/advice-for-engineers-programmers-moving-into-product-in-media<p class="lead">As digital media companies become tech companies, their need for people with technical backgrounds grows, creating opportunities for software developers interested in journalism and media.</p>
<p>“I encourage technologists, product managers, project managers and anyone from outside the industry to come to the news because we need you, and your democracy needs you,” said Brian Boyer, former vice president of product and people at Spirited Media.</p>
<p>Twelve years ago, Boyer left a career as a software engineer to become one of the first two journalism master’s students to attend Medill under a Knight Foundation-funded <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/05/prweb528671.htm">scholarship program</a> designed to bring experienced software developers into media. Since then he has worked as an editor and product manager for the Chicago Tribune, NPR, Spirited Media and Hearken.</p>
<p>“This is a great higher calling,” Boyer said. “It’s also a very frustrating industry to work in.”</p>
<p>To better understand the challenges and opportunities that await programmers entering the media industry, I spoke with Boyer and Kavya Sukumar, a 2013 Knight scholarship recipient and the current vice president of product at Hearken, about their experiences and the advice they would have for software developers thinking about where they fit in the media landscape.</p>
<h2>Finding the type of work that is right for you</h2>
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<figcaption>Brian Boyer (center), participating in a Facebook Membership Accelerator program in Menlo Park, California. “Think about every word you write, think about every word you say and ask yourself, ‘Is this a word a regular person would understand?’ Because there’s usually a replacement,” Boyer said.</figcaption>
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<p>For programmers, leaving tech and entering an industry dominated by non-programmers poses a number of challenges, starting with understanding the different types of engineering jobs in media.</p>
<p>“At one end of the spectrum, there’s a lot of people who are doing something much closer to data science in the newsroom,” Boyer said. “They’re using databases, using surveys, making their own data.” These programmers tend to focus on creating tools for the newsroom, Sukumar said. Meanwhile, at larger companies like Gannett and Tribune Publishing, there are programmers working on large content management systems or advertising systems who are virtually indistinguishable from software developers working at Kraft or General Motors, Boyer said.</p>
<p>Between those two extremes are the programmers at small and medium-sized news organizations, who typically work in small teams that might also include a UX designer and a product manager. These programmers work much more closely with internal stakeholders in advertising, membership and the newsroom.</p>
<p>Boyer’s first newsroom jobs after Medill, at Pro Publica and National Public Radio, were focused on data journalism and visual storytelling. He left the newsroom to get into product roles and refocus his career on helping local news become financially viable. Most recently he’s been consulting with different news organizations.</p>
<p>Whether programmers are working in the newsroom to create graphs and charts that help readers understand critical news stories or building internally-facing products that help drive revenue, they are actively participating in journalism. Programmers who are excited by this work will have to learn to adapt to working in an industry where most of their colleagues do not have a technical background and it is up to the engineer to communicate their work clearly.</p>
<h2>Think about user needs before formulating a solution</h2>
<p>Product people from tech or engineering backgrounds are often more focused on how a product solution is delivered than how to understand the needs of users, Sukumar said. Cultivating empathy for users, including colleagues in the newsroom, is essential. In smaller organizations, product roles often require that programmers interview users and advocate for the audience as part of the product team, Boyer said. A human-centered design approach can help guide programmers through the stages of user research and ideation before the solution-development phase.</p>
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<figcaption>Kavya Sukumar says it's important for newsroom product people to be comfortable with constraints. “You’re either constrained in time, budget, or resources, and sometimes all three.”</figcaption>
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<p>When compared to journalists who have learned to code, programmers trained in engineering and computer science often have an advantage.</p>
<p>“Most developers who work in the newsroom – this is me generalizing – are people who are self-taught,” Sukumar said. “Usually self-taught programmers don’t think of programming as their main role, it’s more of a means to an end.”</p>
<p>People trained in engineering and computer science have a better command of their code and therefore have a much stronger sense of which types of product ideas are feasible and how best to deliver them, Sukumar said. This knowledge is particularly useful when trying to rein in over-ambitious product ideas.</p>
<h2>When working within constraints, know your limits and understand you have options</h2>
<p>Due to resource constraints, editorial and product teams are often made up of generalists. “Our product teams, our editorial teams, they’re small shops,” Boyer said. “Having a technical background means I can wear one more hat than most other people.”</p>
<p>But it’s easy for programmers to become overextended in this environment, Sukumar said. “You’re either constrained in time, budget, or resources, and sometimes all three.”</p>
<p>Part of working in this environment means programmers may have to deal with crazy work hours, particularly around busy times, like leading up to an election. Sukumar said one of the primary reasons she chose to leave the newsroom in favor of a product role was to bring some predictability back into her schedule. This is the type of decision that engineers will need to make throughout their careers in the media industry. Boyer said that programmers should understand that if they feel like they need to leave the industry for a time, there will usually be opportunities for them to come back in the future.</p>
<h2>Don't speak in jargon</h2>
<p>Jargon plays a huge part in how software developers communicate with each other, but it gets in the way when programmers try to explain their work to non-programmers. When talking to non-programmers, Boyer explains that he doesn’t use a term such as “QA”, or even “quality assurance.” Instead, he says things like, “Let’s test the thing to make sure it works.”</p>
<p>Cutting jargon out of your vocabulary can be more difficult than it seems. Sukumar said she was unaware of how much she used jargon until she came to journalism school and, even then, it took her about three years to learn how to actively replace it.</p>
<p>“Think about every word you write, think about every word you say and ask yourself, ‘Is this a word a regular person would understand?’ Because there’s usually a replacement,” Boyer said.</p>
<h2>Learn to measure your own output</h2>
<p>Programmers work on a much longer cycle than their editorial colleagues, so it can be difficult to reconcile the digital news cycle with the time and resources it takes to create interactive content, special coverage and media products. Sukumar said that in her previous career at Microsoft, there was always someone else to quantify her work.</p>
<p>“Being able to quantify your contribution, that skill is lacking,” said Sukumar, who adds this is something she’s still working on. “A lot of times your output is not going to be measured by pageviews.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
I encourage technologists, product managers, project managers and anyone from outside the industry to come to the news because we need you, and your democracy needs you.
</p>
<cite>Brian Boyer</cite>
</blockquote>
<p>One way for programmers to do this is by measuring output against the metrics that non-technical stakeholders care about. Breana Jones, director of web product at Vice Media, said she tries to get non-technical colleagues to understand the value of removing “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt">technical debt</a>” – replacing old, inefficient code – on improving audience engagement. For instance, she has shown internal stakeholders that if a page loads even a few seconds faster, it would reach more users and engage them for a longer time.</p>
<h2>Learn by doing</h2>
<p>In most college classes, it’s hard to replicate product-management work. “For people who want to develop and create tools, I always recommend finding a project that you really admire, recreating it and learning where your gaps are.” Sukumar said.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in politics, for instance, start with election analysis and maps. Sukumar suggests sharing your work openly and reaching out to programmers who work in the newsroom for advice and collaboration opportunities. “A lot of news nerds are very collaborative,” Sukumar said.</p>
<h2>Cultivate news judgment and empathy for the newsroom</h2>
<p>While trained engineers have the skills to create technology-enabled products, they often lack news judgment and empathy for the newsroom.</p>
<p>“I often feel like learning journalism is harder than learning to code.” Sukumar said. While news judgment can be learned at journalism schools, engineers can learn through practice and exposure on the job. Less a skill than a mindset, engineers working in journalism should develop empathy for the newsroom, Sukumar said. This is particularly helpful for programmers working in product management, who must understand their internal users to develop products they will be using.</p>
<h2>Be a team player</h2>
<p>While working in the product and consulting world, Boyer learned to manage teams. He calls managing the secret to his success.</p>
<p>“Newsrooms are built out of individual actors.” Boyer said. “That’s not to say there aren’t teams in newsrooms, they’re just not part of the reward structure.”</p>
<p>Many organizations lack people who know how to manage projects or teams effectively, Boyer said. This is an area where programmers with experience leading projects can make a difference.</p>
<p>“I have many times in the past, and will again, hire people who weren’t necessarily the best programmers that were available to me, but who could talk, ask good questions and be thoughtful,” Boyer said. “Especially in product and in journalism, you have to be able to ask good questions.”</p>
<p class="note">This article is one in <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">a series</a> exploring product thinking as an emerging discipline in journalism.</p>Meredith GalloAs digital media companies become tech companies, their need for people with technical backgrounds grows, creating opportunities for software developers interested in journalism and media.How South Africa’s Daily Maverick Launched a Print Newspaper – in a Pandemic. A Case Study in Product Thinking2020-11-18T08:40:00-06:002020-11-18T08:40:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/18/south-africa-daily-maverick-print-newspaper-product-thinking-case-study/south-africa-daily-maverick-print-newspaper-product-thinking-case-study<p class="note">Building a successful product is a collaborative process requiring inspiration, intuition, user research, business savvy and technical know-how. This is one of two case studies in this series showing how product thinking can be applied to the development of a news or journalism product. This one was written for Knight Lab by Styli Charalambous, Publisher and CEO of the Daily Maverick.</p>
<p class="lead">The media world did more than lift an eyebrow when, after many publications announced they were cutting their print editions, the Daily Maverick announced it was launching a weekly newspaper. As a digital-only, investigative and long-form news outlet based in South Africa, we have made a habit of contrarian moves in the decade of our existence. But was this initiative as crazy as some would believe?</p>
<p>It wasn’t crazy for us at all – thanks to product thinking, a discipline we have developed over the years.</p>
<p>Over the years, we’ve never been short of grand ideas or a willingness to experiment. We know the terms “fail fast” and “fail often,” the mantra of technology entrepreneurs. But the part of “fail fast and often” that fails to make the headlines is that without a system to hypothesize, monitor and measure the outcome of your experiments, you’ll miss the target. I think that’s what happened to us for much of our first eight years.</p>
<p>Not everything we tried failed, mind you. We have produced some great journalism, won international awards and created a membership program, Maverick Insiders, that’s been showcased as an <a href="https://membershipguide.org/case-study/how-the-daily-maverick-designed-a-pay-what-you-can-model/">example for others to follow</a>. We’ve doubled our newsroom size in the past two years.</p>
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<figcaption>The Daily Maverick offers a wide variety of benefits to its members. Its membership program was used as a case study for membershipguide.org, produced by the Membership Puzzle Project.</figcaption>
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<p>The foundation of everything we do is the bedrock of quality long-form journalism and newsletters. But with slow progress on developing revenue, we had to experiment with a small budget. In a way, that helped us avoid chasing after all the “bright shiny things” that were supposed to save journalism. Our experiments were always lean. But eventually, we suffered under the weight of projects that were started with gut instinct and little research, and no pre-defined measures of success, project plans or roadmaps. We were like those naturally gifted athletes who got to the big leagues and found that talent can only get you so far.</p>
<h2>How we decide on new products</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">"IkigaiAndDimensionsForABalancedLife.jpg" by Alex Tanchoco is licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license</figcaption>
<figcaption>The Japanese concept of Ikigai -- often applied to people seeking the right career path -- inspired the Daily Maverick's approach to business strategy.</figcaption>
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<p>In a media world of limited budgets, talent and resources, choosing which new projects to pursue is critical. In our resource-constrained world, the Japanese concept of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai">Ikigai</a> has been useful in helping us determine which ones fall into our sweet spot for consideration.</p>
<p>Ikigai has been used to help people figure out what work they should pursue to achieve happiness in their personal lives. Adjusting Ikigai slightly for an organization, we should be pursuing projects that:</p>
<p>● we are passionate about</p>
<p>● we are good at</p>
<p>● the world needs, and</p>
<p>● can be funded</p>
<p>While this might seem to be common sense, that is why it’s effective. Do your new projects hit the sweet spot of the Venn diagram? Companies that have institutionalized an innovation culture have developed scorecards of how to assess new opportunities. If your organization doesn’t have this yet, we have found that Ikigai can help guide your efforts.</p>
<p>Product thinking is a methodology that sits at the intersection of journalism, business, data and technology and the user experience. Stacie-Marie Ishmael, head of product at the Texas Tribune, defines it as a “a framework for identifying, defining, and approaching business-critical opportunities.” This lens reminds us that product development is a mindset and a practice.</p>
<h2>Why a newspaper? And why now?</h2>
<p>It can be easy to get swept up in the negative outlook about the news industry. To assume that hopelessness applies equally to all. But if the last decade has taught us anything, it’s how to make survival look palatable. For a while, things got pretty dark – fighting for economic survival while battling a corrupt government. But through it all, we were spurred on by the growth of our audience and the reputation of the brand.</p>
<p>Our venture into digital-only publishing came at a crazy time. Focusing on politics, in the era of Google and Facebook in a country whose major organs of the state had been captured by nefarious influences seeking to loot national and provincial budgets, wasn’t an environment conducive to innovation. But we always had the suspicion that our brand of long-form analysis and investigations would do well in printed form. Over the years, we reached out to existing print publishers with offers of collaboration that never went anywhere.</p>
<p>In the end, we decided to take control of our print ambitions ourselves. After the launch of our successful membership program, aided by philanthropic support, we were able to double the size of our newsroom in 24 months. Now we felt it was time to try to move ahead with a print product.</p>
<h2>Start with feelings. End with facts.</h2>
<p>Most new product decisions start with a gut feeling that this could be a worthwhile idea – a pursuit that is worthy of our scarce resources. That was where the idea started for a weekly print edition. But what did the research say, before we bet a lot of money on something that so many other companies were abandoning? While industry data on circulation and advertising showed that the print business was declining 8 to 10 percent per year, there were some anomalies that we needed to adjust for.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Leading South African newspapers had suffered a string of embarrassing reports caused by incompetence and political influence. Readers had responded by abandoning print.
</p>
<cite>Styli Charalambous, publisher and CEO of the Daily Maverick</cite>
</blockquote>
<p>Firstly, while paid-for titles in South Africa had shown a drop in circulation of around 50 percent in the last 5 years, free-distribution publications remained strong. Another bit of data that surprised us was the results of a large digital consumer research panel that we participate in every year. This survey of 30,000 respondents showed that 82 percent of our readers, and those who follow the biggest news website in the country, still regularly read a newspaper. But 34 percent don’t pay for it. A separate reader survey found that the main reason people stopped reading print editions was a loss of quality and trust in those publications. Leading South African newspapers had suffered a string of embarrassing reports caused by incompetence and political influence. Readers had responded by abandoning print.</p>
<p>Of course, digital media had sped up this process, but we concluded that there was still demand for a quality print edition. Armed with this data, we began to think we could find an audience for a quality weekly title produced by experienced journalists and available for free.</p>
<h2>Understanding our users</h2>
<p>New print publications our team had been involved in before would have taken shape with little reader research or consultation, and a big push to launch with the perfect version after many delays and blown budgets. This time around, we focused on the “job to be done” for readers, based on their various information needs.</p>
<p>What would this newspaper seek to do for readers, and how would that inform the many product decisions to be made? What would a weekly print offering by a digital-first publisher look like, and how would it serve our readers given what we know about their online reading habits? How do we inform, educate, inspire and offer diversion in a curated weekly information service delivered in print? These were the jobs the print edition needed to do.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
For readers, this newspaper would be about reigniting the lost ritual of the weekend read, something that came up strongly in our one-on-one discussions with our team and readers.
</p>
<cite>Styli Charalambous, publisher and CEO of the Daily Maverick</cite>
</blockquote>
<p>For starters, the content mix had to take into account the weekly nature of the product, incorporating both the biggest stories of the week past as well as new, previously unpublished investigations. This would mean reorganizing our editorial efforts to align the timing of publishing online and in the newspaper. For readers, this newspaper would be about reigniting the lost ritual of the weekend read, something that came up strongly in our one-on-one discussions with our team and readers.</p>
<p>The decline in quality and trust of other newspapers had killed the deep reading experience that many people had come to associate Sundays with. By offering a product worthy of their time, we could rekindle those experiences, missed even more at a time when our attention is being constantly raided by notifications on tiny screens. The job it needed to do was give people a reason to take a break from the digital deluge with enough quality journalism to create new weekend rituals.</p>
<h2>A collaborative partnership</h2>
<p>We decided to call our newspaper Daily Maverick 168 (a reference to the number of hours in a week). We wanted it to be free. In a country with 30 percent unemployment and 40 percent poverty, Daily Maverick does not operate a paywall on its website. Instead, we have a voluntary membership program through which we encourage people to join our community of committed readers to help us “Defend Truth” in a country plagued by corruption. So we have kept our work free for those who might not be able to afford it.</p>
<p>We wanted to extend this thinking to print. Our printers suggested we take inspiration from the Pick n Pay Supermarket group, which published the largest circulation magazine in the country by offering it free to their loyalty cardholders, but with a cover price of 30 Rand (about $2.00 US) for others. With 8 million registered cardholders, the company’s Smart Shopper loyalty program is the biggest and most advanced in the country.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
We have a voluntary membership program through which we encourage people to join our community of committed readers to help us ‘Defend Truth’ in a country plagued by corruption.
</p>
<cite>Styli Charalambous, publisher and CEO of the Daily Maverick</cite>
</blockquote>
<p>As sponsors of our food newsletter, Pick n Pay was already a commercial partner of ours. We began a series of discussions that led us to offer the product free to loyalty program members, and to incorporate shopper behavior data into our product decisions.</p>
<p>Initially, our intention was to take on the market-leading Sunday Times head-on with Sunday distribution, but we changed to Saturday once we found out that this was the top day for foot traffic in the supermarkets. Once we had agreed on terms to offer the print newspaper free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers, the company let us use their audience data to help us market the paper and provide audience insights and sales data. Distributing on Saturdays also meant that we could reach cities far away from our printers before the weekend was up. It also meant our team wouldn’t have to work Saturdays, which was also a plus.</p>
<h2>Testing our ideas: A member survey and a pilot project</h2>
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<figcaption>The Daily Maverick asked its website readers for input on where its print edition should be distributed.</figcaption>
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<p>The success of our Maverick Insider membership program had already helped us grow our organization over the past two years. Apart from the financial benefits of a growing membership base, we had begun engaging with members in ways that began deepening our relationship with them. We asked for and found volunteers willing to provide their skills and expertise, and we held feedback sessions, embracing a more collaborative relationship with our members. By the time of the newspaper launch, we were “engagement fit.” We asked prospective readers which Pick n Pay stores they wanted included at launch. We got more than 10,000 votes in two weeks, enabling us to gauge reader demand and plan the number of copies distributed to stores.</p>
<p>The survey also enabled us to capture email addresses of prospective readers whom we could invite to participate in reader surveys and notify of product announcements. By the time the pilot weekend came around, we could select 20 stores, in two cities, and test demand based on a combination of reader votes, past newspaper sales data from Pick n Pay and some wildcard elements. Once the pilot was concluded, we had sales data per store to determine which ones had leftover copies. A post-pilot reader survey and sales data from Pick n Pay helped us debrief the pilot effort with some important findings:</p>
<p>● 72 percent of copies were distributed, almost all to loyalty cardholders</p>
<p>● Some stores sold out by midday</p>
<p>● 80 percent of readers had made a special trip to the store to get the paper</p>
<p>● In some pilot stores, people walked out with eight times as many copies of our print edition as other papers available there</p>
<p>● We achieved an average 8/10 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter">net promoter score</a></p>
<p>Once again, all this data helped us validate our hypothesis that a free, quality newspaper could be successful and would help us plan the stores to select for launch and the volumes to allocate per store.</p>
<h2>OKRs: Starting with the end in mind</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">Daily Maverick</figcaption>
<figcaption>Copies of 168, the Daily Maverick's weekly print editions, are distributed at Pick n Pay supermarkets.</figcaption>
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<p>Since October 2019, we’d begun the process of incorporating the use of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) as a project management framework. Starting with the membership team, OKRs have been encouraged when planning and managing projects and teams. With the newspaper project, OKRs were set in January and re-evaluated when lockdown due to COVID-19 forced delays.</p>
<p>As with all businesses, we had some serious thinking to do about whether our strategies would hold in the face of the pandemic. But with both journalism and food retailers being deemed essential services, we knew that even in a lockdown, we would still be able to print and distribute a product. Advertiser support would be the great unknown, and April saw a 70 percent drop in print advertising in South Africa.</p>
<p>Our response was to push back our pilot date by 3 months and use the time to deal with the new demands of the pandemic and work on our designs. All the other goals using the OKR framework remained the same and helped us stay focused. Our objective was to launch the best newspaper in the country, with key results that we could measure: circulation, net promoter scores, awards and attention from other media.</p>
<h2>The launch - and our conclusions</h2>
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<figcaption class="credit">Daily Maverick</figcaption>
<figcaption>The Daily Maverick sought to restore "the lost ritual of the weekend read," said publisher and CEO Styli Charalambous.</figcaption>
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<p>Daily Maverick 168 launched Sept. 26. Demand has been strong, and reader feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.</p>
<p>Our new print newspaper shows how a news organization can innovate by using practices that have been commonplace in other industries. Marketing, product and technology are functional areas that are critically important to designing more audience-centric news businesses. Core to that is designing products with a human focus and driven by the needs of the ultimate consumers of those products.</p>
<p>These practices move us away from how products were designed and launched in the past. We need to test assumptions, use data to drive decisions and iterate in increments to keep improving our products. These concepts, while born in technology companies creating digital products, can even be used to launch a print newspaper.</p>
<p class="note">This article is one in <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">a series</a> exploring product thinking as an emerging discipline in journalism.</p>Styli CharalambousBuilding a successful product is a collaborative process requiring inspiration, intuition, user research, business savvy and technical know-how. This is one of two case studies in this series showing how product thinking can be applied to the development of a news or journalism product. This one was written for Knight Lab by Styli Charalambous, Publisher and CEO of the Daily Maverick.For a Product Manager, Here’s How Emotional Intelligence Enables Success2020-11-16T08:00:00-06:002020-11-16T08:00:00-06:00https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/16/product-manager-mindset-emotional-intelligence-enables-success/product-manager-mindset-emotional-intelligence-enables-success<p class="lead">Soft skills, power skills and people skills. In the office, emotional intelligence goes by many names. But whatever the name, these skills are the key to success for product people. I talked with 10 product thinkers, most of whom hold product manager titles. All mentioned leveraging emotional intelligence to conduct user research, manage and lead teams or secure buy-in across their organizations.</p>
<h2>Empathy</h2>
<p>As a product manager, you must be able to empathize with your users, stakeholders and team in order to develop successful products and take people’s experiences and motivations into account. Jenny Friedler, head of product management for consumer products at Vox Media, said it’s important to understand the real community of users who will benefit from your product.</p>
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<figcaption>“Always, always, always do your user research with your hardest to reach, most underserved audience,” says Jenny Friedler, head of product management for consumer products at Vox Media.</figcaption>
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<p>“Always, always, always do your user research with your hardest to reach, most underserved audience,” Friedler said. “Trickle-down design doesn’t work; trickle-up design totally does.”</p>
<p>As senior director of the digital product lab at Planned Parenthood, Friedler used this methodology while designing Spot On, an app for tracking menstruation. By conducting user research with people who menstruate, but do not necessarily identify as women, she and her team were able to create an app that served this community and felt refreshingly gender neutral to cisgendered users.</p>
<p>Kris McKee, senior product manager at Optimizely, said a key part of empathy is being able to take your own perspective out of the picture. It can be tempting, particularly for young product managers, to assume that they are the customer, or that the audience for their current product is the same as the audience for the last product they worked on, McKee said.</p>
<p>Empathy also plays a major role when working cross-functionally, as product managers must. Experience in non-product roles, such as reporter, editor or engineer, enables product managers to intuit some of the needs of the internal users involved. This experience also allows them to communicate more easily with key stakeholders.</p>
<p>“[Product managers] must have a lot of empathy for the fact that people’s roles are different,” said Becca Aaronson, interim president of the News Product Alliance. “You have to understand what they’re accountable for and what they’re trying to get done.”</p>
<p>In news organizations, the ability to understand the newsroom is critical. That’s why many hiring managers in news organizations look for newsroom experience when hiring product managers, and why many working news product managers came from a journalism background.</p>
<h2>Setting priorities</h2>
<p>It’s no secret that media organizations have to contend with serious resource constraints. It’s the product manager’s job to help prioritize where to invest limited resources to meet the organization’s goals.</p>
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<figcaption>Empathy -- for members of the audience and for colleagues -- is essential for product managers, says Becca Aaronson, interim president of the News Product Alliance.</figcaption>
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<p>“I don’t think that anyone should be setting priorities on their own,” Aaronson said. “It requires a lot of buy-in and perspective from across the organization, and an understanding of what your users really need.”</p>
<p>Product managers are often asked to choose which projects to prioritize – say, a new revenue-driving product for a business team that’s behind on its revenue goals, or a fix for a content management system issue that is frustrating the newsroom. If you have strong enough relationships with the stakeholders on these teams, Aaronson said, you can start to ask questions that bring them into the decision-making process. Tools such as the <a href="https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/">“urgent vs. important” matrix</a> can help stakeholders come together, understand each other’s product requests and gauge the effect of their prioritization decisions on other areas of the organization.</p>
<h2>Relationship-building</h2>
<p>Focusing on building relationships across the organization can pay off when it’s time to get buy-in on products. While developing a product, McKee said she provides stakeholders with an update every week, even when she has fallen behind and does not have progress to report.</p>
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<figcaption>Kris McKee, senior product manager at Optimizely, said it's critical for product managers to focus on long-term relationships with colleagues.</figcaption>
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<p>“It shows that I care what they think … and it gives them an opportunity to give me feedback,” McKee said. By laying a foundation during the product development phase, McKee said that when she finally presents the product to her stakeholders, they feel informed about the process and are more likely to give their approval.</p>
<p>Putting in the work to build strong relationships has allowed the New York Times to be agile in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, said Kellen Henry, who was then senior product manager for story formats at the New York Times.</p>
<p>“Having news editors who are close to the product team and having the kind of relationship where those people can say, “What if we did this?’ … made an environment where we were able to iterate and come up with creative ideas in a moment where we were all sort of thrown far apart,” Henry said. She points to At Home, the New York Times section and newsletter launched during the pandemic, as an example of how investments in team- and relationship-building can pay off.</p>
<h2>Advocating for your team and products</h2>
<p>While some media organizations have embraced product thinking, the role of a product manager and the work they do is still confusing to many in the media industry. Product managers are trying to change this by advocating for the work they produce.</p>
<p>“It’s your job to be the champion for your product, and really be talking it up and hyping it up as much as possible,” McKee said.</p>
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<figcaption>"My team and I try to think about what will resonate with editors, like what is the first thing they care about," says Kellen Henry of The New York Times.</figcaption>
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<p>This can be done in a lot of different ways. Jessica Morrison, senior product manager at <a href="https://cen.acs.org/index.html">Chemical & Engineering News</a> and product lead at <a href="https://newscatalyst.org/">News Catalyst</a>, sends out a memo to the C&EN staff after each development cycle, letting everyone know what her team accomplished.</p>
<p>“My team and I try to think about what will resonate with editors, like what is the first thing they care about and how can we talk about the success of our work in a way that will make sense and excite them?” Henry said. Beyond actively telling and showing people your products, coming up with a good name for them also helps, she said.</p>
<p>Celebrating the work of the product team is another way product managers are advocating for product thinking. “It’s not just the writers and the editors, we’re literally responsible for everybody seeing your content.” said Breana Jones, director of web products at Vice Media.</p>
<p>Jones said that the engineers she works with at Vice love the brand but are invisible to much of the organization. By calling them out, sharing their work with company leaders and encouraging them to present projects before they’re done, Jones tries to make their work more visible and motivate them to continue to do good work.</p>
<h2>Horizontal leadership</h2>
<p>If stakeholders are key for buy-in, team members are key for getting product work done. In most media organizations, product managers straddle multiple teams without authority over these staff members.</p>
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<figcaption>Breana Jones, director of web product at Vice Media, recommends that aspiring product thinkers examine audience data.</figcaption>
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<p>“You tell people what to do, but you’re not their boss,” Jones said. “It takes what I call horizontal leadership. You have to be really good at strategically understanding who people are and what motivates them.”</p>
<p>For Jones, knowing her team allows her to think strategically about how to involve members in developing products. Jones said being transparent and presenting her team with problems that need solutions, rather than a series of unrelated tasks, allows her team to feel invested in the product development process. She said this approach also creates more space for iteration.</p>
<p>The emotional intelligence required of a product manager can seem daunting, but having empathy and maintaining relationships with team members and stakeholders can become second nature. These are skills that good reporters already have – to develop empathy with people they interview and build relationships with sources.</p>
<p>“Be somebody that people want to work with,” Henry said.</p>
<p class="note">This article is one in <a href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2020/11/09/rise-of-product-thinking-media-series/index.html">a series</a> exploring product thinking as an emerging discipline in journalism.</p>Meredith GalloSoft skills, power skills and people skills. In the office, emotional intelligence goes by many names. But whatever the name, these skills are the key to success for product people. I talked with 10 product thinkers, most of whom hold product manager titles. All mentioned leveraging emotional intelligence to conduct user research, manage and lead teams or secure buy-in across their organizations.