Journaliste-programmeur, le mutant parfait? asks Sabine Blanc at Owni.fr. Well, the short answer is no, but Sabine Blanc’s question is a figure of speech.
She is reacting to Ryan Tate’s important Hack to Hacker: Rise of the Journalist-Programmer. Both articles impose the journalist programmer as a trend. And this trend is the news — not the humoristic aspects of the trend.
The “simple” journalists don’t need to tremble: there is no super-powered mutant professional coming from a high-tech spaceship to get their jobs ;)
I partially agree with the conclusion: “Si le double profil ne devrait donc pas devenir incontournable, il est aussi évident qu’une bonne louche de culture web supplémentaire ne ferait pas de mal à la profession, dès l’école ou en formation continue. Et pour ceux qui veulent aller plus loin, une spécialisation programmation.”
No, the double profile is not inescapable. Far from it. But I don’t expect that programming becomes a matter of general culture. It will be just a skill, maybe a specialization, even if I don’t like the expression. Is photography a specialization of journalism?
Maybe the history can provide some clues.
On the early nineties a similar change occurred when the infographics were introduced. At first, only a very small group of illuminati in the newsrooms understand the appeal (for the eyes) and the potential (for showing in a glance big chunks of information) of the infographics. It passed some time until most journalists accept the infographics in their articles. An even more time until every print journalist wish an infographic illustrating his/her story.
The infographics also born from information technology: they proliferate with Desktop Publishing — you know articles and news were typed in typewriters before, right?
Did everybody in the newsroom become an infographic?
Of course not. But the process made its way and now every newspaper was an infographics section and buys infographics from news agencies. And, glad you asked, yes, back those days a bunch of journalists was terrified by the prospective of being forced to learn CorelDRAW or Illustrator, and draw!
Who are the infographics ? Are they converted journalists? Designers? Artists?
You don’t have a simple answer for that. Some of them have a journalistic background, others came from art schools. In some newsrooms they are marginalized. On others they are powerful. But the infographic become a journalistic process. A pretty nice one, be it on static on paper or animated on the screen.
Expect the same pattern here. Some old journalists (like myself) will learn code, but we are a very restricted club. Some new journos know basic PHP they learned with blogs and WordPress; some of them will become fine journalist programmers. Some programmers will fall in love with journalism — or they just find a job in new media.
The journalist programmer is just another branch. The next branch. Code is just another tool to tell a story.
Hello, my name is Paulo Querido. I'm a 49 year old portuguese journalist and writer. Did almost everything in newspapers and wrote a lot about technology and networking. Now I prefer to code and teach. Join this conversation about new skills that improve journalism in a world totally full of data, as well as the effects of openness of information and governance around the world.