With the current revolution in technology and journalism, many journalism pundits are blindly advocating non-technical journalists learn programming and web development skills. Programming, as opposed to coding HTML or CSS, takes a considerable time commitment to learn and may or may not come natural to the average journalist.
Use the flowchart below to determine whether or not learning programming/web development is the right choice for you.
(Click for larger version; feel free to share or distribute)
Also on 10,000 Words:
• Why journalists should learn to code (and why some shouldn’t bother)
• Essential multimedia tutorials and resources for do-it-yourself training
• Journalists: Change starts with you
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Have you heard about the Hacks/Hackers initiative? http://hackshackers.com/
“Hacks/Hackers is a digital community of people who seek to inspire each other, share information (and code) and collaborate to invent the future of media and journalism.”
July 20, 2010, 9:46 am
Funny stuff.
July 20, 2010, 10:22 am
Great job with this chart & post! This is one of the most common questions I’ve gotten throughout my career, and it’s become a heated debate.
The flowchart looks great and gives you the right answers.
July 20, 2010, 10:41 am
El Profe's Blog » To program or not to program? Pingback Says:
[...] his post: Should journalists learn programming skills?: A Flowchart [...]
July 20, 2010, 10:43 am
I love the flow chart – I think if you are involved in any kind of digital production then a basic grasp of HTML/CSS is a must. As for programming in an actual scripting language, well, I think for most journalists, developing a programming mindset is more important than actually being able to develop applications. If you do want to go down that route, in the UK there has been an informal group started up called “Ruby in the pub“, where volunteer coders have been getting together with interested journalists to go through some basic programming skills over a beer.
July 20, 2010, 12:38 pm
Nice one Mark
July 20, 2010, 1:43 pm
Thanks Danny! Thanks guys! Please share more resources if you have them!
July 20, 2010, 4:18 pm
Soy periodista… ¿Debo aprender a programar? | Clases de Periodismo Pingback Says:
[...] gráfico de 10,000 Words es un test con humor que será de mucha utilidad para los periodistas. Aunque es un tema que [...]
July 20, 2010, 4:46 pm
Hey Mark, nice graphic!
I took the test and the answer is no! LOL
In my opinion, I dont think it is necessary to learn this because a journalist’s main concern should be to get good at writting, speaking, being able to tell a story, find answers, find sources.
Im not sure why this idea of learning programming has been installed among journalists lately. I think it makes no sense! There’s always a really good programmer out there who can be hired to do the job, a job that is not a joke. Thats another wrong idea installed, like, anyone can be a programmer, you can learn to program in a 2-months course (System Engineers study during 4 or 5 years at school all kinds of programming; it’d be disrespectful to reduce it to a short course).
We didn’t have to learn to make paper in order to publish the news. A whole industry was built around newspapers and it gave jobs to many people, not only journalists.
Digital communications should employ lots of profiles, not only journalists.
July 20, 2010, 5:27 pm
Great graphic, hilarious! And thanks to others for mentioning Hacks/Hackers.
Not to get too serious, but I think there’s a big gray area here for journalists besides learning or not learning to code — and that’s simply learning enough to know what’s possible. Coding is an art and not everyone will be able to pick it up. A great coder, just like a great writer, is a rare and exceptional talent.
But it still has a lot of value to learn the lingo so you can know what’s possible to speak to a coder even if you can’t fully build it yourself. Knowing that will also give you a much deeper appreciation for the work that goes into coding, and help you realize again that it is an art very much like writing.
July 20, 2010, 11:57 pm
Should journalists learn programming skills? Flowchart | Journalism Hope Pingback Says:
[...] time commitment to learn and may or may not come natural to the average journalist. via 10k words h/t to [...]
July 21, 2010, 2:17 am
Leren programmeren, of toch maar niet? » Jan Stedehouder Pingback Says:
[...] gaan doen. Mark S. Luckie, schrijver van The Digital Journalist’s Handbook, heeft een handig stroomschema online gezet. Daarmee moet je kunnen bepalen of je als digitale schrijver aan de code [...]
July 21, 2010, 4:56 am
Soy periodista… ¿debería aprender programación? | tejiendo redes Pingback Says:
[...] 10000words This entry was posted in periodismo 2.0 and tagged periodismo de datos, periodismo geek, [...]
July 21, 2010, 4:40 pm
Nice graphic, but it really needs some arrows to indicate the control flow. In some spots it’s a bit confusing which way the eye is supposed to go – and real programmers know that code doesn’t always flow downward.
July 22, 2010, 10:23 pm
Read All About It – some links and news (23 July 2010) « Blathnaid Healy Pingback Says:
[...] an amusing link from 10,000 words on journalists learning programming skills [...]
July 23, 2010, 5:05 am
Love it!
July 23, 2010, 10:37 am
Weekly Link Digest – 25th July 2010 | BroadcastJournalism.co.uk Pingback Says:
[...] Blogger: I read this earlier this week, and agreed with much of what Jolie O’Dell had to say. Should journalists learn programming skills?: A flowchart over at 10,000 words. Self explanatory but useful. Times libel ruling shows Reynolds [...]
July 25, 2010, 11:19 am
Medial Digital» Linktipps Neu » Linktipps zum Wochenstart: Was OpenData kann Pingback Says:
[...] Should journalists learn programming skills?: A Flowchart [...]
July 25, 2010, 1:10 pm
Medial Digital» Linktipps Neu » Linktipps zum Wochenstart: OpenData-Journalismus Pingback Says:
[...] Should journalists learn programming skills?: A Flowchart [...]
July 25, 2010, 2:05 pm
Hi, thanks for the chart; it’s very useful. I took the liberty to translate it into Spanish and publish it in my blog for journalists http://www.5wh.info
Of course, with the corresponding reference to your site.
I hope that’s alright, let me know if not.
José Erre
July 27, 2010, 11:41 am
Você deveria aprender programação? | Piadas Nerds Pingback Says:
[...] Eu vi aqui. [...]
August 4, 2010, 8:06 pm
Since when is XML a programming language instead of a syntactical structure for organising data???
Question: Do you think that XML is a programming language?
Answer: You should not become a programmer.
August 7, 2010, 6:58 pm
Jiminy –
In your hurry to provide a (commendable) definition of XML, you misread the text. Nowhere does it say that XML is a programming language. It says it is “a computer language…used to build web applications/databases,” which is correct.
August 7, 2010, 9:50 pm
Should Journalists Learn PRogramming? « John P. Muldoon Pingback Says:
[...] flowchart itself came from a site called 10000words. It’s a bit tongue in cheek but it does ask some pertinent [...]
August 12, 2010, 2:10 pm
Great flowchart, and I am also enjoying your articles on journalists/programmers. I am using the graphic on a related article on my blog.
August 12, 2010, 2:14 pm