Hacks and Hackers are regular informal meetups where technologists and journalists get together to discuss how news gathering is changing in the digital age. The November Sydney meeting featured a discussion with Aron Pilhofer, founder of the original event and Editor of Interactive News at The New York Times.
Aron had some great views on how journalism is changing and some of what he mentioned about the New York Times’ digital adventures was off the record
Some gems from Aron included just how ‘dirty’ raw data is from government agencies and how journalists can help open data advocates make their stories more accessible. Those topics are for future blog posts.
One of Aron’s comments about the challenges of the media was how many news organisations are trapped in “a weird case of Stockholm syndrome” – where their output is limited by their Content Management Systems.
It’s notable how many businesses, not just in media are constrained by their own systems – what was set up to serve the organisation has instead has become the master.
Of all the take aways from Aron’s talk, the Stockholm Syndrome of poor CMS’ is the most universal across industries – organisations pay a fortune to multinational consultancies for poor software platforms that management then tries to shoehorn their staff and business processes into.
This rarely ends well and usually creates more problems as the business loses flexibility, which is exactly what has happened to new organisations.
Sometimes biting the bullet and writing off a poor investment, particularly in software, makes damn good sense.