New York Times 2020 Report

Let's let your own words stand. You said, "there were people who wanted to know how to do graphics." It doesn't say that nor does it imply that reporters should be doing that. It talks about embedding things contextually. That's a different beast.

 

I'm sorry you don't understand the difference between the two things.

 

"Simple map." You still are wrestling with that.

Someone is going to provide the information for that. The writer would likely set up something -- possibly a hard copy -- with the important places on the map.

No, that's not "doing the graphic." But given that the original example in this debate was a complicated multimedia presentation that is not the most polished thing I have seen today, I would say it's more likely the writer would participate in constructing a map than the other example.

 

I'm sorry you don't understand "simple map." Or "reporters."

 

I've already shown how you were wrong over and over. I'm going back to the Royal Rumble.

 

I said I was done pointing out what you didn't read or understand, but ...

"The 2020 group’s survey of the newsroom uncovered a deep desire among many reporters and editors to acquire new skills. They understand that Times journalism has already changed and will need to change even more. They want to play a bigger role in making that change happen. To do so, they need new kinds of knowledge, so that they are able to create digitally native journalism that meets Times standards of excellence. ...

"Our newsroom training efforts have improved markedly over the past year, but they need to expand further. One recently hired reporter told us, “The ability to maneuver and be trained on different platforms would be ideal,” adding that, “training is always haphazard.”

I did make one assumption -- that if there is a serious attempt to make these things happen, a writer would at least learn how to set up a "simple map" with a Google software program or something else. I used to do a bunch of those, and it's really not tough after you get the hang of it.

Again, the graphics person would still do the actual graphic, but this would seem to be a reasonable starting point if the training is a real goal.

Oh -- "simple map."

 

OK, one last post than back to the Rumble. When they talk about the reader pointing out a simple map, what they're saying isn't that they want more "simple maps." What they're saying is that their reporters and editors put so little thought into visuals at times that even a simple map falls through the cracks, so they need to put more of an emphasis on visual journalism so that, yes, they can get more "simple maps" but also so they can get better, fuller visual presentations to stories rather than rivers of text when something else would tell the story better.

Now back to the Rumble.

 

I guess I could agree with that being an inference, rather than the actual statement that you seem to think it is.

"Simple map." "Reporters." A specific, cited example. I'll ride with those over inferences.

This sounds very familiar. Probably straight from the Gannett playbook.

 

I'm just so happy I could start a thread that would generate this level of anger.

 

At the risk of hearing from the expert, I found a link that kind of describes a reasonably easy way to create maps:

How to Make a Customized Google Map

This is not exactly what I used before, but it's close. Again, the graphics department would still create the graphic.

 

Not really anger, as much as disbelief that in the current environment, there are still people this single-minded. Did Gannett achieve some across-the-board success with this stuff when I wasn't looking?

The scary thing is, I actually agree with a little of what The Self-Proclaimed Expert is saying.

And I hate to immediately go down the "simple map" road again, but upon more reflection, I have to wonder why the subway route example is included in the report at all. Why not simply look forward and provide justification? It seems petty to call out this example, and as TSPE claims, they might have meant something on a bigger scale.

Perhaps a better, more thought-out report would have answered that question.

 

Like Jim pointed out, though, this wasn't the lone document. There were instructions on what implementing this stuff meant that we didn't see outside the Times. He went into what some of that meant, talking about bringing in visual journalists earlier in the planning of projects to get their input.

And I readily admit my interpretation of their simple map example reads into it some, based off the context of the whole section. But I say that because visual journalists have been making that argument for a long time now. It boils down to the idea that most reporters and editors are word people. In the current Internet age, there needs to be more use of the expertise of visual journalists. Sometimes, word folks get it right, and sometimes the best way to tell a story is a long-form narrative. But papers need to loop the visual folks in early and see if they have a better way to tell things. If the reporters and editors can't even remember a simple map, they will definitely need help from visual journalists to help see what stories might be better told in a different format. Looking at the entirety of that section, that's what I think they're getting at. And it really isn't anything revolutionary; there are a few of us at my paper that have been making a similar argument for years now. It's surprising in a way to see them make it so prominent in their report (being the first subsection, I believe) because the Times seemingly has made this a priority for a while. If they haven't and they've been doing this well with it (other than missing a map here or there), it'll be interesting to see what happens as they change things.