1. How to Build a News App Team
Emily Ramshaw
Texas Tribune
@eramshaw
Jon Keegan
The Wall Street Journal
@jonkeegan
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

2. It’s HARD!
Hard for organizations big and small
Unique challenges based on size, location and culture
Lots of common problems – and common solutions – that can work for
an organization of any size
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

3. Chemistry
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

4. The Makeup of our Teams
Texas Tribune
4 news app developers
2 are front-end; 2 are back-end
1 plays role of team lead
Support & back-up from 4-person tech dept
The Wall Street Journal
10 news app developers
2 designers
2 data developers
2 tools developers
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

5. The Makeup of our Teams
Journalism Coding
Design
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

6. Chemistry
Define the mix of skills you need for your team
Cultural fit > predetermined skills / roles
Account for personal chemistry
Essential to always have someone speaking the language of journalism – someone
to communicate with the newsroom
Where possible, match projects to personalities
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

7. #appsteam
Hiring
@eramshaw @jonkeegan

8. Hiring Challenges
Texas Tribune
Competition with the big dogs
Competing with higher salaries
Inexperienced candidates
Convincing management that a strong
news app team is money well spent
The Wall Street Journal
Competition is fierce
Hiring process can take longer
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

9. The Pitch
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

10. The Pitch: Texas Tribune
Come work for a scrappy, innovative and youthful start-up –– BEFORE you get
picked off by The New York Times
Put your name on great work
Austin is a tech-forward city that boasts an incredible quality of life, from BBQ to
live music to great weather
Delightful workplace culture
More fun to be the pirates than the Navy
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

11. The Pitch
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

12. The Pitch: WSJ
Huge global audience
Relatively small team. You can be a big fish in a small(ish) pond
You can go anywhere from here
Amazing endless stream of global stories
Opportunities to work around the world
!
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

13. TIPS
Cultivate your interns. Make them a member of your club. Treat them as peers, and as family.
Then HIRE THEM.
Reach out to schools: Journalism and Computer Science programs and local civic hacking
communities
Create great relationships with academics
Sell the culture and community
Pledge to further education at work: conferences, hackathons, training
Offer opportunities for advancement and leadership
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

14. TIPS
Build a team that is respected in the newsroom
Very small newsrooms: Partner with colleges, other newsrooms, INN
Engage with the news app development community: NICAR-L list, Hacks / Hackers, ONA. Host
a meetup!
Where to advertise jobs: SOURCE, NICAR-L, IRE
Where to hunt: J-Schools, struggling start-ups, competitors – keep your ears open
Invest in enterprising, motivated reporters + editors who can make the transition
Find free help: Seek a Knight-Mozilla fellow or a Google fellow
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

15. From Our Survey
“Appeal to their journalistic side and get them involved in investigations (or at least
promise you will). If developers really wanted money they'd go develop, but they're
interested in your team for deeper fulfillment that will help coax them out of higher paying
gigs.”
“We've seen an issue teaching news to folks with a non-editorial background. For instance,
what our ethical standards or story selection.”
“I definitely look for aptitude and communication skills more than developer skills. It's a lot
easier to learn code than to learn how to work with luddites.”
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

16. From Our Survey
“At our SRCCON on redesigning the newsroom, one team laid out a great playbook for how
news organizations with no history of development can start to build a team”
http://bit.ly/appsteamtips
“There are newspapers who want to hire data or journo-devs but don't give them the time or
support to do anything interesting. They constantly get conscripted for daily stories or
clerical work and everyone quickly gets disillusioned.”
- Tom Meagher / @ultracasual
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

17. From Our Survey
“ Converting promising homepage producers into web developers is your only hope if you
don't have a big pile of money” - Ben Welsh / @palewire
!
“Appeal to their journalistic side and get them involved in investigations (or at least
promise you will). If developers really wanted money they'd go develop, but they're
interested in your team for deeper fulfillment that will help coax them out of higher paying
gigs.”
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam

18. Come work at The Texas Tribune!
https://www.texastribune.org/jobs/news-apps-developer-front-end/
https://www.texastribune.org/jobs/news-apps-developer-back-end/
@eramshaw @jonkeegan #appsteam