Awesome Newsroom Tech

This is a curated list of awesome newsrooms around the world that are using software engineering, data science, big data, osint, blockchain, and more to elevate reporting. If you want to contribute a newsroom or clarify information on the list, please open either an issue or a fork and make a pull request with the name of the newsroom, links to their source code and site, and projects (ongoing, past) that are using tech in the newsroom.

Note: This list is intended to be alphabetical by newsroom name so please add in alphabetical order.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

• website: ajc.com
• github: NewsappAJC

Newsapp Team

The AJC Newsapp Team works on data-driven and immersive reporting projects. An example of their work is analysis about how precinct closures are harming voter turnout in Georgia.

BBC News

• website: bbc.co.uk
• github: bbc

BBC News Labs

News Labs is the BBC's innovation team. They work on large-scale projects and prototypes with an emphasis on hypothesis-driven investigations. A look-back on work accomplished in 2018 can be found here.

Bellingcat

• website: bellingcat.com

OSINT Reporting

Bellingcat is a team of independent researchers that use open source intelligence to investigate subjects around the world. They use creative approaches to using data they find publicly available to break stories, often programmatically.

Bloomberg News

• websites: bloomberg.com, bloomberg.com/graphics
• githubs: bloomberg, bizweekgraphics

Graphics

BuzzFeed News

• website: buzzfeednews.com
• github: buzzfeednews

Data Journalism

BuzzFeed News has an investigations team that uses data to report. The team is comprised of journalists who are also data scientists and software engineers. They also consult on data-driven stories. BuzzFeed News keeps a list of all projects where they've used tech in reporting.

Tech News Working Group

BuzzFeed News also has the Tech News Working Group, a group of SREs, SWEs, data scientists and product managers that support day-to-day consulting on stories and work on larger ongoing projects. They maintain a running list of stories consulted on.

CBC News

• websites: cbc.ca
• githubs: CBCNews, cbrc

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the national public broadcaster for both radio and television in Canada.

Canada Votes

For the past decade, CBC has hosted a Vote Compass service to help Canadians understand and choose government representatives by gathering and sharing and realtime polling and voting data.

De Correspondent

• website: decorrespondent.nl
• github: decorrespondent

Investigative Projects

De Correspondent conducts investigative reporting based on analysis and data using code. Examples are their YouTube extremism tracking and looking at European politics.

The Economist

• website: economist.com
• github: TheEconomist

FiveThirtyEight

• website: fivethirtyeight.com
• github: fivethirtyeight

Data

FiveThirtyEight keeps a running record of code for graphics and analysis on their site. On occasion, they will also share complete datasets.

Forensic Architecture

• website: forensic-architecture.org
• github: forensic-architecture

Investigations

They produce open-source projects like mtriage, which is a command-line application that can be used to scrape and analyze media. The also conduct investigations using technical tooling.

Gizmodo

• website: gizmodo.com
• github: gawkermedia

Investigations & Special Projects Desk

Gizmodo uses data and technology to power some stories that investigations and special projects produces. In December 2019 they wrote a story that potentially located tens of thousands of ring cameras using a proxy and data analysis on the Neighbors app.

NBC News

• website: nbcnews.com/datagraphics
• github(s): NBCNews
• twitter: NBCNewsGraphics

Data / Graphics

The NBC News Data / Graphics team is a part of NBC News' digital newsroom and reports, codes, designs, analyzes datasets, illustrates and designs in service of publishing graphics, interactives and stories on NBCNews.com.

NPR

• website: npr.org
• github(s): npr, nprapps
• blog: blog.apps.npr.org/blog

Visuals

ProPublica

• website: propublica.org
• github: probulica
• blog: propublica.org/nerds

News Apps

Propublica hosts a collection of wide-ranging applications, graphics, tools, and databases on News Apps.

Spotlight PA

• website: spotlightpa.org
• github: spotlightpa

Digital-First Journalism

From their website: "Digital-first journalism means we make all of our editorial decisions based on the best way to reach modern-day readers online and in the forms and formats they like most for consuming news. While some of our stories will take the traditional, narrative form, we’ll seek to innovate using data and visual tools to create new, interesting and engaging storytelling forms. And we won’t be afraid to experiment."

The Atlantic

• website: theatlantic.com
• github: theatlantic

City Lab

City Lab uses data visualization to tell the story of urban spaces and transit. Code can be found at theatlantic/citylab-data.

The Boston Globe

• website: bostonglobe.com
• github: BostonGlobe

News Apps & Graphics

The Chicago Tribune

• website: chicagotribune.com
• github: newsapps

News Apps

The Los Angeles Times

• website: latimes.com
• github: datadesk

Graphics

LA Times data desk produces "analysis, applications and automation from a team of reporters and computer programmers in the Los Angeles Times newsroom", including all of their interactive graphics for articles.

Spreadsheets

LA Times keeps open source datasets at spreadsheets.latimes.com. For example, they have a spreadsheet tracking decades of allegations against the boyscouts here.

The Markup

• website: themarkup.org
• github: the-markup

Data Reporting

The Markup is a much anticipated new news venture where work is scientific and data-driven in nature. The Markup's entire concept is pairing data science and software experts with investigative reporters. Looking forward to their first publication.

The New York Times

• website: nytimes.com
• github(s): nytimes, newsdev, theupshot, nytlabs
• blog: open.nytimes.com

Interactive News

The Times Interactive News team is a digital projects team embedded within the NYT newsroom. The work on services that aid reporting, wrangle data for stories, and work on graphics and ways to present data.

Graphics

Provenance Project

The News Provenance Project is "a research initiative that will examine how new technologies can potentially inform industry-wide solutions." Namely, they are looking to use blockchain technology to record and share metadata about media.

The Upshot

A data-driven team focussing on wide-ranging statistical analysis.

R & D

TK: description needed

The Oregonian

• website: oregonlive.com
• github: TheOregonian

Data Journalism

The Oregonian provides data and code along with guidelines for how they do data journalism.

The Pudding

• website: pudding.cool
• github: the-pudding

Interactive Storytelling

The Pudding produced an innovative piece in 2019 on Millenials killing everything (code) using an interactive design to tell the story. They also provide a "how" section on articles.

The San Francisco Chronicle

• website: sfchronicle.com
• github: sfchronicle

Interactives

The Seattle Times

• website: seattletimes.com
• github: seattletimes
• blog: dev.seattletimes.com

Data-Driven Reporting

The Seattle Times uses graphics and data to drive reporting on an array of issues.

Interactives & News Apps

The Texas Tribune

• website: texastribune.org
• github: texastribune

News Apps, Graphics, & Databases

From their site: "The Tribune is an authoritative source for providing user-friendly databases of public information. Our reporters and software engineers collaborate to present a full picture for readers, giving them the tools to be more thoughtful, productive and engaged citizens. We also use data to help tell other compelling stories about politics and policy in Texas."

The Wall Street Journal

• website: wsj.com
• github: wsj

Graphics

The Washington Post

• website: washingtonpost.com
• github: washingtonpost
• blog: postgraphics.tumblr.com

2020 Election Team

This is a Jeremy Bowers-lead team at TWP dedicated to tech for the 2020 election. It is a computational R & D lab tasked with building tools to aid journalism ahead of the election.

Graphics

Quartz

• website: qz.com
• github: quartz

Quartz AI Studio

From their site: "The Quartz AI Studio is an effort by Quartz to help journalists use machine learning in their reporting. This work is funded by a grant from Knight Foundation."

Quartz Bot Studio

From their site: "The Quartz Bot Studio builds narrative experiences for messaging and voice platforms."

Vox Media

• website: voxmedia.com
• github: voxmedia

Digital Storytelling

A product that helps build "packages" of similar stories, each with its own editor and front-facing tools.

WNYC

• website: wnyc.org
• github: wnyc

Data News Team