Journalistopia: New Tableizer! Tool Turns Spreadsheets into HTML Charts
Wednesday, 10 December 2008, 17:31
"Web producers here in our newsroom often have to throw up quick charts of data online, but hand-editing a table from a spreadsheet or exporting it from Office or Dreamweaver can be a time-consuming endeavor. Well, now you have Tableize!, a time-saving tool that lets you copy/paste spreadsheet cells, click a button and –voila!– instant HTML tables you can quickly put online."
Saturday, 29 March 2008, 11:53
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Dave Lee quotes the Sky News Online induction pack: “Your stories appear on the web thanks to HTML, the computer language. Fortunately you need to know very little about how it works.”
Skillset of the journalist of the future
Sunday, 4 March 2007, 11:19
The Chicago Tribune’s interactive division is hoping to hire a journalist specialising in interactive database production of the sort Adrian Holovaty has been advocating.
The requirements for the job are pretty demanding:
- 2-5 years’ experience with databases, preferably in a newsroom
- Bachelor’s degree in journalism, English or related discipline
- Computer-assisted reporting background or similar
- Demonstrated knowledge of statistics, statistical analysis, etc.
- Strong oral and written communication skills
- Experience in database content entry and management
- Broad experience with data sources, data mining and database
concepting - Familiarity with database interfaces and web presentation layers
- Basic knowledge of HTML and Flash required; advanced skills
desirable
A journalism or English graduate with quantitative and technical skills to go with a deep understanding of how the web works. There aren’t many people with that skillset.
What’s worse, I can’t imagine how anyone would obtain those skills through conventional journalism education.
I can’t think of any journalism course in Britain that prepares students for a career path that might eventually involve applying for a job like this — although I’d love to be corrected if I’m wrong.
Update 9/3: There has been a lot of activity on this topic since I posted this. Adrian Holovaty is hiring at WashingtonPost.com, while Matt Waite counsels newspapers stop looking for the next Holovaty and to concentrate on finding these skills among existing staff. Meanwhile, Mark Glaser of MediaShift has a great report on what various other US newspapers are doing in this area.
