Comments on: Why you should suck it up and learn to script

By: Teaching Online Journalism » How you look at data: Graphics vs. text

Teaching Online Journalism » How you look at data: Graphics vs. text — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:05:18 +0000

[...] Why you should suck it up and learn to script (March 5, 2008) [...]

By: Teaching Online Journalism » MVPs for March and April

Teaching Online Journalism » MVPs for March and April — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:01:43 +0000

[...] Why you should suck it up and learn to script [...]

By: Design, details and Daytona Beach « Avoiding the asteroid

Design, details and Daytona Beach « Avoiding the asteroid — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:09:06 +0000

[...] details and Daytona Beach I took Mindy McAdams’ advice from a couple of weeks ago and started to learn [...]

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:37:47 +0000

Mindy, this could serve as a simple example for your students:

http://www.cyndiloza.com

The graphic at the bottom measures articles (with CSS) by word count, which we know print people love. Obviously, a CMS manages the data, but Google Charts is also a great place to get started with automated creation.

By: Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media » Setting type on a stick

Notes from a Teacher: Mark on Media » Setting type on a stick — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:16:21 +0000

[...] passion and, intellectually, I understand what Mindy McAdams is writing about in her post Why you should suck it up and learn to script and what Matt Neznanski is addressing in his Wired Journalists post What tools? Wrong question. [...]

By: Mindy

Mindy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:49:39 +0000

I love my server guy. He is the crucial buffer between me and all hardware and software issues I want to hide from!

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:23:04 +0000

I got shivers when I read the anecdote about a former manager trying to turn you into a server admin.

And I own a copy of DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith if you want to borrow it after I return from Austin (where I will have a beer with him).

Love, Your Server Admin

By: shawn smith

shawn smith — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:59:03 +0000

Great post Mindy. I would love to see this integrated into more J-School programs. I haven’t met too many journalists with scripting knowledge, but I can just imagine the possibilities….

By: Mindy

Mindy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:47:16 +0000

Thanks for the insight, Pia. Yesterday a member of the advisory council for my college’s Journalism Department emphasized how important it is now for our students to understand how databases work — ideally, they will also know how to create databases.

I made a note to myself to make sure to incorporate some database work into my courses.

By: Pia

Pia — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:28:48 +0000

Mindy, once again - you’re on the money. What I try to explain to people is that if you have some understanding of these things, even if you don’t have to do them every day, it really helps you communicate with the people who do have to do it every day. (And we are in the communications business, after all.)
It also empowers you to understand what is possible and why. I recently led the redesign and move of my organization’s Web site to a database-driven system. My ability to “speak database” to the programmer made the process easier for both of us - we had many “ah-ha” moments when I was able to put things in terms of a database. Even more importantly, I was able to ask for what I wanted because I know enough about databases to know what is possible. I’m not anywhere close to being a database expert but I get the concepts.
And that ability to understand the concepts is much of what makes me valuable to my boss - something everyone should keep in mind these days. If you can bridge that gap in your organization, you become infinitely more valuable.
Journalists often have to know a little bit about a lot of things and that holds just as true in this area.