http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=164084
How Computational Thinking is Changing Journalism & What's Next
Posted by Kim Pearson at 12:08 PM on May 22, 2009
I'm part of the post-Watergate generation of journalism school graduates, and I'm watching my peers struggle to master digital tools in an effort to stay relevant to an industry that is shifting under their feet. After years of working and collaborating with computer scientists at the forefront of the digital transformation of our culture, I've come to understand that what we need, most of all, is to master the fundamentals of what computer scientists have begun to identify as "computational thinking."
The good news is there many parallels between computational thinking and the ways of knowing that are embedded in the practice of journalism.
What is computational thinking?
In a seminal piece on the concept, Jeannette M. Wing explains that computational thinking applies computing processes (human and machine) to other disciplines.
The Web site at the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Computational Thinking elaborates:
Computational thinking means creating and making use of different levels of abstraction, to understand and solve problems more effectively.
Computational thinking means thinking algorithmically and with the ability to apply mathematical concepts such as induction to develop more efficient, fair, and secure solutions.
Computational thinking means understanding the consequences of scale, not only for reasons of efficiency but also for economic and social reasons.
Computational thinking is more than digital literacy
Let's begin with the obvious. Journalism became a computing-dependent profession long before the online revolution upended the business models that sustained the industry since the 1830s.
Investigative journalists, particularly, have been using government databases for decades. They have been creating databases since the early 1990s, and it's no accident that many of the Pulitzer-Prize winning stories over the last 15 years rely heavily on database reporting.
There's no longer an argument about whether journalists need to be digitally literate. (((I'm not arguing, but I'd be really interested in some fresh reporting from areas of society that have *nothing to do with computers.* I wonder if there are any of those left.)))
Today, newsgathering requires the ability to write programs that scrape public records databases and design interfaces that make the information in those databases interesting, relevant and accessible. It requires the programming and design skills to create interactive presentations that model complex public policy issues or explain social processes. It requires the mastery of social media technologies used to organize online communities around shared interests, issues and concerns. It requires the ethical grounding needed to ensure that the content generated by these advanced tools is accurate, fair, comprehensive and proportional.
However, the digital transformation of newsgathering and delivery requires that journalists become creators, not just consumers of computing technologies. I'm not saying that journalists need to become programmers.... (((Okay, he IS saying that journalists need to become programmers, but it's nevertheless a rather interesting thing to say.)))
