The New York Times Claws Its Way into the Future(wired.com)
wired.com
The New York Times Claws Its Way into the Future
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/new-york-times-digital-journalism
26 comments
Is one of the three languages context still, or did they finally get rid of all that? ;)
(nytd 2008-2010)
(nytd 2008-2010)
Hahah thankfully the usage and number of DSLs has dropped significantly. I still had to write stuff using Drools (https://www.drools.org/) tho which was the worst thing I've ever had to do in my dev career
I believe the Holy Three are Python, Go, and Java. Personally the fact that Go is on there totally invalidates the list for me. It upset a lot of other people, too, because it's not very widely used in the org and is just a pet favorite of one of the higher ups. Was a serious source of friction.
I believe the Holy Three are Python, Go, and Java. Personally the fact that Go is on there totally invalidates the list for me. It upset a lot of other people, too, because it's not very widely used in the org and is just a pet favorite of one of the higher ups. Was a serious source of friction.
Hello! I was one of those annoying "architects" saying no, but it wasn't because only three languages are allowed. When I left the Times about six months ago, systems were actively being developed in the following languages: PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, Scala. (And ObjC and Swift, if you want to count those.) Plenty of unmaintained legacy systems in other languages, too. So proposals to add yet another language (Clojure, right?) were I think understandably received with some skepticism. It's not that it couldn't happen, just that there'd have to be a hell of a good reason, and there wasn't. It was unfortunate that months of work were invested before a proposal was written, but that wouldn't have been a very good reason to approve it.
For what it's worth, I agree with almost everything else you said.
For what it's worth, I agree with almost everything else you said.
Thank you for the clarification. I was told by my manager that new projects could only be written in the three above-mentioned languages so I was just going by that. And yes I was part of the Clojure lobby haha.
I really do hope they streamline a bit of the bloat in tech. It's a real shame. So many dev hours wasted in meetings. So many PMs who know more about the intricacies of Kanban and JIRA ticketing but nothing about the product. There's a lot of talent there, though. I think it can be done.
I really do hope they streamline a bit of the bloat in tech. It's a real shame. So many dev hours wasted in meetings. So many PMs who know more about the intricacies of Kanban and JIRA ticketing but nothing about the product. There's a lot of talent there, though. I think it can be done.
Oh man, count yourself lucky if you never had "fun" with context. :) For everyone who hasn't had that ... joy, imagine perl4, but compiled and running in its own proprietary vm with a ton of employer-environment-specific extensions. It was 100% in-house to the Times. When I interviewed, part of the process was them throwing a screenful of it at you and asking "OK, what does this do?" as a test of your general ability to reason out things you had no possible way of getting pre-exposure to. The only redeeming value that it had really was that it was a) pretty fast b) pretty small in terms of memory requirements. I can't think of a single thing about it that PHP wouldn't be a better fit for though on every metric, and I'm certainly no fan of PHP. After I left that job one of the biggest drivers for me wanting to take compilers eventually was thinking back to what a shitshow working with ctx was and how badly I would've wanted a ctx2php transpiler. I worked on the team that among other things handled the login/auth system, which was sufficiently antediluvian that it had a lot of ctx code.
Why? I understand the holy wars between devotees of Rust and Go, but if anything I'm impressed that the NYT would actually look beyond 1990s languages.
Because it wasn't a widely-used language in the part of the org the decree applied to. It was purely chosen to seem cool and trendy and also because it's one of the higher ups favorite languages.
Thanks for the input. What did you do at the Times?
I worked on cross platform services, essentially building out APIs and data delivery for both the newsroom and other tech orgs. I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times - it's an interesting place to work (socially speaking, I found their tech to be pretty boring).
> I'm happy to answer any questions people might have about the Times
You asked for it. :) If any of these are inappropriate for you to answer, I understand. Thanks much in advance:
1) The Innovation Report came out in 2014. Per the article (and corroborated by other things I've read), it changed attitudes at the Times because "You couldn’t read that report and think that the status quo was an option." People there still thought the status quo was an option as late as 2014! Is it just standard incumbency psychology - where the incumbent power in an industry lives in an echo chamber, is tied down by vested interests, and can't see change coming - or is something else going on?
2) I've read a few internal reports, leaked and released. All repeat how great the NY Times is -'the best in the world', 'the greatest', etc. - over and over. It was in the Innovation Report, which was supposed to be only for top management to read. These reports aren't marketing to the public (and NYT marketing doesn't use that message nearly as much as the internal reports I saw) and these aren't stated missions ('our goal is to be the world leader in ...'); it looks like flattery in internal communications. It seems like an odd bit of narcissism. What about the culture requires them to tell themselves how great they are? Are they that insecure? Usually highly successful organizations don't need to say that to each other; they know. OTOH, maybe my sample size is too small and it's not really an issue.
3) It still seems to me that they are still a newspaper (emphasis on that old medium, paper) making accommodations to the electronic medium, rather than a news publication on the Internet. Stories still are told almost entirely in text, which was a limitation of the old medium but not the new, and images and video usually are decoration rather than a primary means of story-telling. Even two-bit bloggers will, rather than describing something, just show it to the reader: 'The building is rundown: <img>'. I read a story that described how some innovative high school dance program started class each day with (a dance and song?) - why not just show me a video? Occasionally they have helpful graphics, but they talk like that's a special event rather than a norm of the medium and usually it's a separate story - 'the graphics story' - they can't seem to tell a story integrating different mediums as needed. What is going on? Are they just stuck? Will they let go of the old medium before it's too late?
EDIT: A few edits
You asked for it. :) If any of these are inappropriate for you to answer, I understand. Thanks much in advance:
1) The Innovation Report came out in 2014. Per the article (and corroborated by other things I've read), it changed attitudes at the Times because "You couldn’t read that report and think that the status quo was an option." People there still thought the status quo was an option as late as 2014! Is it just standard incumbency psychology - where the incumbent power in an industry lives in an echo chamber, is tied down by vested interests, and can't see change coming - or is something else going on?
2) I've read a few internal reports, leaked and released. All repeat how great the NY Times is -'the best in the world', 'the greatest', etc. - over and over. It was in the Innovation Report, which was supposed to be only for top management to read. These reports aren't marketing to the public (and NYT marketing doesn't use that message nearly as much as the internal reports I saw) and these aren't stated missions ('our goal is to be the world leader in ...'); it looks like flattery in internal communications. It seems like an odd bit of narcissism. What about the culture requires them to tell themselves how great they are? Are they that insecure? Usually highly successful organizations don't need to say that to each other; they know. OTOH, maybe my sample size is too small and it's not really an issue.
3) It still seems to me that they are still a newspaper (emphasis on that old medium, paper) making accommodations to the electronic medium, rather than a news publication on the Internet. Stories still are told almost entirely in text, which was a limitation of the old medium but not the new, and images and video usually are decoration rather than a primary means of story-telling. Even two-bit bloggers will, rather than describing something, just show it to the reader: 'The building is rundown: <img>'. I read a story that described how some innovative high school dance program started class each day with (a dance and song?) - why not just show me a video? Occasionally they have helpful graphics, but they talk like that's a special event rather than a norm of the medium and usually it's a separate story - 'the graphics story' - they can't seem to tell a story integrating different mediums as needed. What is going on? Are they just stuck? Will they let go of the old medium before it's too late?
EDIT: A few edits
> Stories still are told almost entirely in text, which was a limitation of the old medium but not the new, and images and video usually are decoration rather than a primary means of story-telling.
I much prefer the largely text medium, even in the digital age. One can consume & process content immensely faster with text than inages and video.
I much prefer the largely text medium, even in the digital age. One can consume & process content immensely faster with text than inages and video.
> One can consume & process content immensely faster with text than inages and video.
I prefer whatever is more efficient too, and text is great. For example, generally speaking, I prefer text to a video that is longer than maybe 30 seconds, because reading is random access and I can skip to what I want.
But as a universal statement, I'm pretty sure the above comment is factually inaccurate. Certainly for large classes of information, visuals are more efficient. For example, a graph of year-by-year unemployment rates in the 20th century is far more efficient than a list of numbers and years. Similarly, a photo can convey information that would take pages and pages of text.
I prefer whatever is more efficient too, and text is great. For example, generally speaking, I prefer text to a video that is longer than maybe 30 seconds, because reading is random access and I can skip to what I want.
But as a universal statement, I'm pretty sure the above comment is factually inaccurate. Certainly for large classes of information, visuals are more efficient. For example, a graph of year-by-year unemployment rates in the 20th century is far more efficient than a list of numbers and years. Similarly, a photo can convey information that would take pages and pages of text.
A photo leaves too much interpretation to the user, which takes away from what you want from the news - information.
Graphs are also extremely specific, and very easy for people to misinterpret/get misled by. The specificity of graphs also means that most forms of information cannot be conveyed that way, and so it is a limited tool.
Graphs are also extremely specific, and very easy for people to misinterpret/get misled by. The specificity of graphs also means that most forms of information cannot be conveyed that way, and so it is a limited tool.
There's Netflix for television and Spotify for music, so it's almost inevitable there's going to be a "Netflix for journalism." (Even with competitors offering news supported by advertising for free, it's still a billion dollar market.)
But... why would it be the Times? Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts.
But... why would it be the Times? Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts.
> Incumbents have a poor track record of avoiding disruption by ambitious upstarts.
Because journalism is hard. Actual journalism requires boots on the ground, reporters, photographers, contacts in foreign governments, press infrastructure, etc. Netflix and Spotify didn't start out making music, they started out as a delivery platform for it. The NY Times owns the entire integration, from creation to delivery, which puts them in different position than say, music labels for Spotify or movie studios for Netflix.
Because journalism is hard. Actual journalism requires boots on the ground, reporters, photographers, contacts in foreign governments, press infrastructure, etc. Netflix and Spotify didn't start out making music, they started out as a delivery platform for it. The NY Times owns the entire integration, from creation to delivery, which puts them in different position than say, music labels for Spotify or movie studios for Netflix.
Well, there is https://www.pressreader.com , which has the potential to be Netflix for journalism. Would be great if more publishers worked with them.
This looks like Yet Another News Aggregator. Google and Yahoo have had them for years (decades?) among many others.
A true game changer would have to be one that people paid money for, and served ultimately to pay for real journalism. That has also been tried many times, with no success that I'm aware of.
I don't mind paying for news, but most newspapers charge in the range of $20-$40 a month for digital subscriptions which just seems outrageous to me. I can listen to a bottomless well of music for $10/mo on Spotify, watch a huge catalog of shows and movies on Netflix for roughly $10/mo, or subscribe to a handful of newspapers for $200/mo. Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment?
A true game changer would have to be one that people paid money for, and served ultimately to pay for real journalism. That has also been tried many times, with no success that I'm aware of.
I don't mind paying for news, but most newspapers charge in the range of $20-$40 a month for digital subscriptions which just seems outrageous to me. I can listen to a bottomless well of music for $10/mo on Spotify, watch a huge catalog of shows and movies on Netflix for roughly $10/mo, or subscribe to a handful of newspapers for $200/mo. Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment?
> Is journalism so, so much more expensive to produce than entertainment?
There's a temporal component here that's much more important for journalism than it is for those other two forms of entertainment.
For example, The Shawshank Redemption was made 23 years ago and is still a fantastic movie: People will still pay to watch that movie. In contrast, very few people will pay money to read a news article from even two days ago (let alone 23 years ago).
Sony could never produce another movie again and have a sizable revenue stream just from distribution rights on their existing film catalog. The NYT can't really do that, the demand for old news articles just isn't that great.
The equivalent of a news subscription then isn't really Netflix or Spotify: It's going to the movies, or going to a concert, or buying an album. All of which are notoriously considered to be expensive affairs.
I'd even go so far as to say the NYT would probably absolutely let you read older articles for cheap (a few $ a month), but the demand for that is non-existent so it's silly to even offer.
There's a temporal component here that's much more important for journalism than it is for those other two forms of entertainment.
For example, The Shawshank Redemption was made 23 years ago and is still a fantastic movie: People will still pay to watch that movie. In contrast, very few people will pay money to read a news article from even two days ago (let alone 23 years ago).
Sony could never produce another movie again and have a sizable revenue stream just from distribution rights on their existing film catalog. The NYT can't really do that, the demand for old news articles just isn't that great.
The equivalent of a news subscription then isn't really Netflix or Spotify: It's going to the movies, or going to a concert, or buying an album. All of which are notoriously considered to be expensive affairs.
I'd even go so far as to say the NYT would probably absolutely let you read older articles for cheap (a few $ a month), but the demand for that is non-existent so it's silly to even offer.
Oh dear - just realized pressreader does not make it clear at all what they do on their website. They give online access to 5.000 print publications from all over the world and charge either per single issue (0.99£ in my case), or 29.99£ per month to access all of it. So it seems to be pretty close to what you are looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PressReader
Downside: A lot of the publications are insignificant/ very similar to each other. They do have some good ones like the Guardian, but I'm still missing some personal favourites, so haven't joined yet.
Downside: A lot of the publications are insignificant/ very similar to each other. They do have some good ones like the Guardian, but I'm still missing some personal favourites, so haven't joined yet.
There is already a Netflix for journalism: it's called Facebook. Like Netflix, they do not produce content, but have amassed a huge, loyal audience by doing a great job of aggregating and distributing it.
Netflix eventually realized that it would get cut out of the distribution business--that's why they started making their own content.
So far, Facebook shows no interest in making their own news content, probably because news companies show no sign that they are capable of beating Facebook at anything.
Netflix eventually realized that it would get cut out of the distribution business--that's why they started making their own content.
So far, Facebook shows no interest in making their own news content, probably because news companies show no sign that they are capable of beating Facebook at anything.
Facebook & Twitter are the popcorntime of journalism, better then netflix.
Because NYT actually invested in building an ecommerce system for the publishing vertical.
The main problem, IMHO, is that they are trying to make this massive, expensive transition under an artificial constraint: That the Sulzbergers retain control of the organization:
1) They lack capital (AFAICT) and have to desperately worry about getting the subscription model to work and soon. The Washington Post was sold to Jeff Bezos; from what I've read, Bezos encourages them to experiment, and pointed out that he could lose $100 million on the Post per year for 100 years (or something like that), and he'd still be one of the wealthiest people in the world.
The NY Times is not just a family business, it's an institution that is extremely important to the public welfare. To hold onto it and risk its future when it would be safe in others' hands is very selfish. Of course they shouldn't sell it to just anyone, but there are plenty out there who would be responsible owners.
2) Last names and genetic inheritance are a very poor way to select business leaders, especially at a time that requires an extraordinary one. What an incredible opportunity for a brilliant person - if only they would stand back, sit on the board, and let a professional run the show.
EDIT: From the article: "Family control is one of the competitive advantages of The New York Times—there is no plan B for Sulzberger or his family."
1) They lack capital (AFAICT) and have to desperately worry about getting the subscription model to work and soon. The Washington Post was sold to Jeff Bezos; from what I've read, Bezos encourages them to experiment, and pointed out that he could lose $100 million on the Post per year for 100 years (or something like that), and he'd still be one of the wealthiest people in the world.
The NY Times is not just a family business, it's an institution that is extremely important to the public welfare. To hold onto it and risk its future when it would be safe in others' hands is very selfish. Of course they shouldn't sell it to just anyone, but there are plenty out there who would be responsible owners.
2) Last names and genetic inheritance are a very poor way to select business leaders, especially at a time that requires an extraordinary one. What an incredible opportunity for a brilliant person - if only they would stand back, sit on the board, and let a professional run the show.
EDIT: From the article: "Family control is one of the competitive advantages of The New York Times—there is no plan B for Sulzberger or his family."
I like the NYT because they feel comfortable and trustworthy insofar as I know what to expect from them and understand the context of their work.
I hope I still like whatever they become after this pivot.
I do hope they succeed even if I don't like their new form, as I wish the best for any attempt to make journalism less dependent on advertising.
I hope I still like whatever they become after this pivot.
I do hope they succeed even if I don't like their new form, as I wish the best for any attempt to make journalism less dependent on advertising.
This part was fascinating:
> [The innovation report was leaked to BuzzFeed] The BuzzFeed leak was devastating for Sulzberger—“a moment of panic,” he says. “We had written a pretty frank and candid document expressly for a small group of leaders... it felt like our dirty laundry was being aired.” ...he realized within a few days that the public scrutiny had turned an administrative white paper into a media rallying cry.
They never would have gotten the change they need without the leak! It's like WH staffers leaking to Fox to get the president's attention.
When I read the NYT online I feel like they still can't decide whether to stick with the legacy structure (most articles can't be commented on, still the newspapery structure) or go 100% the other way (the big, technically-complex, unreadable "snow" piece). The Economist has the same problem.
> [The innovation report was leaked to BuzzFeed] The BuzzFeed leak was devastating for Sulzberger—“a moment of panic,” he says. “We had written a pretty frank and candid document expressly for a small group of leaders... it felt like our dirty laundry was being aired.” ...he realized within a few days that the public scrutiny had turned an administrative white paper into a media rallying cry.
They never would have gotten the change they need without the leak! It's like WH staffers leaking to Fox to get the president's attention.
When I read the NYT online I feel like they still can't decide whether to stick with the legacy structure (most articles can't be commented on, still the newspapery structure) or go 100% the other way (the big, technically-complex, unreadable "snow" piece). The Economist has the same problem.
The NYT does incredible work. It just needs to take a hard look at it's digital side and trim a lot of the fat. There's a lot of churn and little long term vision. Unfortunately layoffs / firings are rare in the tech org but buyouts and their ilk are widespread in the newsroom.