The job’s pretty easy to describe: You see all the stories on this website? The ones about journalism innovation — changes in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for? This job is about coming up with, reporting out, and writing those stories. There are some other duties, of course, like helping run our social media presence, but it’s a reporting and writing job at its core. If you’ve ever thought I’d be good at writing Nieman Lab stories, I’d strongly encourage you to apply.

This person will join our little Harvard newsroom. They’ll also be joining the larger Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, which does a lot of exciting things for journalism and for journalists. Best known are the Nieman Fellowships, which bring a few dozen amazing journalists from around the world to our home, Walter Lippmann House, every year. (That’s it up above the headline — though I confess it looks a little snowier today.)

For more details, you can see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing.

I’ve been hiring people for positions like this one at Nieman Lab for some time now, and these are some of the qualities I look for most:

— Deep curiosity. This is No. 1 with a bullet. You’re not a the-stories-come-to-me person; you’re a whoa-what-the-heck-is-the-story-behind-that kind of person. Curiosity is a general trait, but of course it’s obviously better if you’re deeply curious about the specific things we write about most, which I would sum up as how news happens in a digital environment. The future of news should be something you’re excited to think about. We’re journalists who write about journalism, so I expect a higher baseline level of interest in the subject matter.

— A lean-forward reporting style. You make the extra phone calls, you write the extra emails, you do the extra archive searches. If you’re on a story, you don’t just send an email to a PR person and wait. Some of the stories we write are ones people are generally happy to tell (“We’re trying this cool new thing here at The Daily Planet, look!”), but others need a substantially heavier dose of digging. In the grand tradition of quality beat reporting, this is a job where you’ll build your own subject-matter expertise every day and over time bring that knowledge to your work. The questions you’re most passionate about answering are typically the ones where you’ll do the best work.

— Some writing personality. As I put it back in 2012: “Writing stories for the Lab isn’t exactly the same as writing news stories for a traditional outlet — but it also isn’t the same as writing a blog with your own personality high-beams on. The voice and tone we’ve developed in our [now 10 years] of existence are important to us, and you’ll need to be able to write clean copy that both grabs the audience and respects its time.” One way I’ve described our tone is: Imagine you worked for a company that is a competitor to The Daily Planet, and your boss has asked you to write a memo about this new project they have going on. It’s a bit more nuanced and human voice than what you might find elsewhere.

— Collegiality. We’re a pretty small operation, both at Nieman Lab and at the larger Nieman Foundation, so we particularly like to hire people who will be exemplary citizens of Lippmann House. And of course, we’re part of the larger community of Harvard (and Cambridge; MIT is two T stops away), and we value those associations. (Harvard’s a pretty amazing place to work.)

Finally, I want to emphasize that we’re hoping for a very diverse pool of applicants, in all senses of that word. It’s great when someone comes into a newsroom with a fresh set of perspectives, a unique set of experiences, or just a different way of thinking about the issues we’re most interested in.

A few quick process notes: This position will be based here in Cambridge; it can’t be remote, sorry. To be considered for the job, you’ll have to apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process. But if you have specific questions about the job, feel free to email me or deputy editor Laura Hazard Owen.)

That crisis was the spark for the Abrams Nieman Fellowship for Local Investigative Journalism, which debuted here at the Nieman Foundation a little over a year ago. It shares a lot with the other Nieman Fellowships we’ve offered for more than 80 years, but with a few added elements that make it unique:

The Abrams Nieman Fellowship for Local Investigative Journalism was created to bolster deeply reported local and regional news stories in underserved communities throughout the United States.

Funded by the Abrams Foundation, this fellowship will fund up to three Nieman Fellowships for U.S. journalists who cover news in areas of the United States where resources are scarce.

The fellowship additionally will fund up to nine months of fieldwork at the fellow’s home news organization after two semesters at Harvard — or in the case of freelance journalists, a newsroom partner. During the fieldwork period, the Abrams Nieman Fellows may expand or develop an investigative project that will provide better, more in-depth coverage of issues important to the communities they serve.

I’ve now seen literally hundreds of journalists from around the world have their lives and careers changed by a Nieman Fellowship. Any of our fellowships is a glorious thing. But the Abrams — combining a full year at Harvard with deep journalistic work that truly matters to a community — is something special.

If you’re a local journalist in the United States, you should read more about the fellowship (in our piece from its launch and on the Nieman Foundation site).

But most importantly, you should apply — the deadline, February 18, is creeping closer. (But we all know journalists are great on deadline, right? And it’s not the heaviest lift: Your project proposal can be 500 words, max.) Questions? Email our fellowship program administrator, Nicole Arias.

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is pleased to announce the creation of the Harry M. Davis Nieman Fellowship in Science Journalism.

The fellowship is funded by a gift from an anonymous donor made on behalf of Ella (Davis) Mazel in memory of her brother, Harry M. Davis, a science journalist and a Nieman Fellow in the class of 1941.

Science journalists from both the United States and abroad are eligible for this fellowship opportunity at Harvard, which will be offered during the 2019-2020 academic year. The Davis Fellow will have access to the many schools, labs and research centers at the university and will join a cohort of some two dozen journalists from around the world in the Nieman class of 2020.

The fellow will receive a stipend for the year and have an opportunity to take classes at other local universities, including MIT and Tufts, and to interact with the robust scientific community based in and around Greater Boston.

Journalists who cover any science topic — from climate change and technology to health and medicine, artificial intelligence and beyond — may apply. Applications from international candidates are due Dec. 1, 2018; the deadline for U.S. applicants is Jan. 31, 2019. The application period for the class of 2020 will open in October 2018.

Davis, the fellowship’s namesake, was a science editor at Newsweek and a writer for The New York Times. He drowned at age 38 in the Gulf of Mexico in 1949.

The job’s pretty easy to describe: You see all the stories on this website? The ones about journalism innovation — changes in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for? This job is about coming up with, reporting out, and writing those stories. There are some other duties, of course, like helping run our social media presence, but it’s a reporting job at its core. If you’ve ever thought I’d be good at writing Nieman Lab stories, I’d encourage you to apply.

This person will join our little five-person Harvard newsroom. She or he will also be joining the larger Nieman Foundation, which does a lot of exciting things for journalism and for journalists. (That’s our home, Walter Lippmann House, above; it’s nice.) For more details, see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing.

One note about the position: To be considered for it, you’ll have to apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. (Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process. But if you have specific questions about the job, feel free to drop me a line.)

I’m very happy to say that we will again be one of the host organizations for the Google News Lab Fellowships. You can apply here, and the deadline is January 15. Here’s Google’s description:

The Google News Lab Fellowship offers students interested in journalism and technology the opportunity to spend the summer working at relevant organizations across the US to gain valuable experience and make lifelong contacts and friends. While the work of each host organization is unique, Fellows have opportunities to research and write stories, contribute to open source data programs, and create timely data to accurately frame public debates about issues in the US and the world.

Fellows receive a stipend of $9,000 USD and a travel budget of $1,000 during the 10-week program, which runs from June-August.

We’re looking for students who are passionate about reporting and the role that technology can play in the pursuit of the craft. You must be a US student or a student studying in the US with a relevant visa to qualify. That said, we welcome students from all majors and degree programs.

It’s a chance to come spend time in Cambridge working with us as we research and report on the future of news — writing stories, working on projects, and generally trying to learn more about where the news ecosystem is headed.

We’re one of 8 journalism institutions that will be hosting Google News Lab Fellows this year. The others are pretty great, too: the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Pew Research Center, Poynter, Matter Ventures, ProPublica, the Investigative Reporters & Editors, and Witness.

In the first few years of this program, you could only apply to a single host organization, but that’s changed: You can now apply to as many as you’d like. (You still apply to each individually, though. And fair warning: We get a lot of applications, so spraying every organization with undifferentiated applications probably won’t be successful. Making it clear that you actually know a little about Nieman Lab and what we do is a big help.)

As mentioned above, there’s a stipend: $9,000 for the 10 weeks, plus a travel budget of $1,000. And note that only U.S. citizens and those who already have the right to work in the U.S. are eligible to apply. (Though all may not be lost for non-Americans; Google is also sponsoring News Lab Fellows in nine other countries this year.)

You can read a FAQ with much more detail here. Again, most importantly, the deadline to apply is January 15. We’ve been very lucky to have six Google fellows over the past few years, and they’ve all been terrific. (We actually hired last summer’s.) Perhaps you’ll be the seventh. Here’s that application link again.

(One last nomenclature-related thing: Even though this uses the word “fellowship” in its title and is based at the Nieman Foundation, note that it’s quite different than our traditional Nieman Fellowships, which allow working journalists to come spend a year taking classes and working on a course of study at Harvard. This is an opportunity for a student to come work with Nieman Lab staff for the summer, reporting on the future of journalism. Apologies in advance to anyone confused by the terminology.)

The job’s pretty easy to describe: You see all the stories on this website? The ones about journalism innovation — changes in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for? This job is about coming up with, reporting out, and writing those stories. There are some other duties, of course, like helping run our social media presence, but it’s a reporting job at its core. If you’ve ever thought I’d be good at writing Nieman Lab stories, I’d encourage you to apply.

This person will join our little five-person Harvard newsroom. She or he will also be joining the larger Nieman Foundation, which does a lot of exciting things for journalism and for journalists. (That’s our home, Walter Lippmann House, above; it’s nice.) For more details, see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing.

One note about the position: To be considered for it, you’ll have to apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. (Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process. But if you have specific questions about the job, feel free to drop me a line.)

If you answered essential or exciting or precarious or imperiled — and have ideas for how to make it more of the first two or less of the last — you may be a candidate to join our next group of Knight Visiting Nieman Fellows. We are looking for ideas to advance journalism — ideas that would be helped by up to 12 weeks of project work here on Harvard’s campus. We’ll be accepting applications through September 29, which you can submit online.

In nearly six years of supporting visiting fellows, we’ve embraced an exciting array of innovative ideas and journalism influencers. We’ve welcomed editors and academics, reporters and developers, veterans and junior practitioners. Fellows have come from the U.S. and abroad, including India, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, and throughout Europe. Recent fellows have included:

• Sandra Barrón Ramirez, product designer at Borde Político and Transparencia Mexicana, who worked on constructing a central index for the disappeared and missing in Mexico, data that will help journalists.
• Trushar Barot, London-based mobile editor for the BBC World Service, who researched AI assistants, a project that included a convening of news and tech industry leaders to share developments in voice AI.
• David Barboza, a reporter for The New York Times, who is creating a business and financial database of Chinese companies to aid investigative journalism in China.
• His colleague Nina Lassam, director of ad product at the Times, who studied how to foster greater participation in comments and distributed news content, with a focus on more engagement among female readers.
• Raheel Khursheed, Twitter’s head of news partnerships for India and Southeast Asia, who examined micropayments for news content.

Many of our visiting fellows’ have made their resulting work public, which we hope further encourages innovation in journalism. Futurist Amy Webb published a Nieman ebook on her proposal for rewriting the future for journalism schools. Jack Riley came as a visiting fellow from The Huffington Post U.K. to study the future for news on wearables, and wrote about his findings for Nieman Lab. Tara Pixley, an independent photojournalist and photo editor, authored this cover story for Nieman Reports about the importance of diversifying news imagery and the ranks of visual journalists, the subject of her visiting fellowship.

Along with her excellent report on an alternative vision for public radio membership, visiting fellow Melody Kramer created something even more valuable for visiting fellowship applicants: a short video about her proposal, her application, her interview, and how she approached her eight weeks at Harvard. In reflecting on her advice, one additional question to consider is whether your goals would be best met by this project-based fellowship or by our year-long Nieman Fellowship, an opportunity for broader inquiry and professional development. A couple of visiting fellows discovered that their ambitions were grander than their brief time on campus allowed and wished they had applied for the full academic year. (Applications for that fellowship are due December 1 for international journalists and January 31 for U.S. applicants.)

I recently met with Nieman colleagues to review the status of the visiting fellowships and they all underscored the importance of two fundamentals: first, a focused project is better than a broad one; second, plan ahead. Whether you come to campus for two weeks or 12, the time will go quickly. You are unlikely to complete your interviews and research if you don’t narrow them to what’s achievable and identify important campus and Cambridge-area resources before arriving — including those at the Nieman Foundation.

We’re bullish on journalism at Nieman, and know its future depends on innovation. These visiting fellowships are one way we invest in that future. If you have questions, please contact us at nieman_applications@harvard.edu. We’re eager to read your proposals.

Anyway, Josh does Q&As with people in his newsletter and he asked me. Here’s a copy of our quick exchange over email that ran in this morning’s edition.

If you value what we do here — our reporting, our Twitter feed, our daily email — the best way to support it is to give to our parent organization, the Nieman Foundation. In addition to the Lab, the foundation is home to our sister publications (Nieman Reports and Nieman Storyboard) and, most notably, the Nieman Fellowships, which have given many hundreds of journalists up to a year to study at Harvard or to work on a specific journalism project.

Funding for Nieman has come primarily from the generosity of our donors. And thanks to the generosity of the Knight Foundation and its Knight News Match program, individual gifts between now and January 19 will have double the usual impact. Give any amount up to $1,000 by that date and Knight will match it — meaning your dollar will go twice as far.

Many news organizations have seen increases in subscriptions and gifts, as more people realize the value in the journalism they read (often for free) online. If what we do here has informed you — if original reporting on the latest in journalism innovation is important to you — please contribute today or by January 19, knowing Knight will double your impact. To donate, go here. And thank you.

I’m very happy to say that we will again be one of the host organizations for the Google News Lab Fellowships. (Does that name sound new to you? Until last year, this was known as the Google Journalism Fellowship.) You can apply here, and the deadline is January 3. Here’s Google’s description:

The Google News Lab Fellowship offers students interested in journalism and technology the opportunity to spend the summer working at relevant organizations across the US to gain valuable experience and make lifelong contacts and friends. While the work of each host organization is unique, Fellows have opportunities to research and write stories, contribute to open source data programs, and create timely data to accurately frame public debates about issues in the US and the world.

Fellows receive a stipend of $8,500 USD and a travel budget of $1,000 during the 10-week program, which runs from June-August.

We’re looking for students who are passionate about reporting and the role that technology can play in the pursuit of the craft. You must be a US student or a student studying in the US with a relevant visa to qualify. That said, we welcome students from all majors and degree programs.

It’s a chance to come spend time in Cambridge working with us as we research and report on the future of news — writing stories, working on projects, and generally trying to learn more about where the news ecosystem is headed.

We’re one of 8 journalism institutions that will be hosting Google News Lab Fellows this year. The others are pretty great, too: the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Pew Research Center, Poynter, Matter Ventures, ProPublica, the Investigative Reporters & Editors, and Witness.

In the first few years of this program, you could only apply to a single host organization, but that’s changed: You can now apply to as many as you’d like. (You still apply to each individually, though. And fair warning: We get a lot of applications, so spraying every organization with undifferentiated applications probably won’t be successful. Making it clear that you actually know a little about Nieman Lab and what we do is a big help.)

As mentioned above, there’s a stipend: $8,500 for the 10 weeks, plus a travel budget of $1,000. And note that only U.S. citizens and those who already have the right to work in the U.S. are eligible to apply. (Though all may not be lost for non-Americans; Google is also sponsoring News Lab Fellows in nine other countries this year.)

You can read a FAQ with much more detail here. Again again, most importantly, the deadline to apply is January 3. We’ve been very lucky to have five Google fellows over the past few years, and they’ve all been terrific — perhaps you’ll be the sixth. Here’s that application link again.

(One last nomenclature-related thing: Even though this uses the word “fellowship” in its title and is based at the Nieman Foundation, note that it’s quite different than our traditional Nieman Fellowships, which allow working journalists to come spend a year taking classes and working on a course of study at Harvard. This is an opportunity for a student to come work with Nieman Lab staff for the summer, reporting on the future of journalism. Apologies in advance to anyone confused by the terminology.)

But we’re bullish at Nieman, and every day invest in the people we think can make a difference. If you’re someone with an idea to advance journalism and think that time at Harvard could help, we’d like to hear from you.

We’re accepting applications now for our next group of Knight Visiting Nieman Fellows. This is a chance to join us here on campus for up to 12 weeks to work on a project. The deadline for applying is October 14 and you can submit online.

In five years of offering these fellowships, we’ve welcomed a diverse group of journalism influencers. Reporters, developers, editors, academics, and others from the U.S. and abroad have been among the applicants we’ve supported. The projects have ranged from Pulitzer-winning correspondent Paul Salopek’s epic seven-year walk across the globe to test concepts of slow journalism, to futurist Amy Webb’s provocative plans for rewriting the future for journalism schools. Many of our fellows have published the results of their inquiry with us. Jack Riley, head of audience development at The Huffington Post U.K., spent a month at Harvard studying the opportunities for news organizations with wearables, such as the Apple Watch. He wrote about his findings for Nieman Lab.

Visiting fellow alumna Melody Kramer, who researched a terrific project on public media, made a short video about her proposal, her application, her interview with us, and how she tackled eight weeks at Harvard. You’ll find her description helpful in deciding both whether and how to apply. Be sure to consider whether your needs are better met by our longer Nieman Fellowship, geared toward broader inquiry and professional development. Applications for that fellowship are not due until December 1 for international journalists and January 31 for U.S. applicants.

We believe there are two keys to a successful visiting fellowship. First, a focused inquiry is better than a broad one. Two or three months speed by quickly and having clear goals — even if it’s only a part of a larger project — is important. And plan ahead. One question we ask of every applicant: “Why Harvard?” Since our founding in 1937, this remarkable university has nurtured and encouraged approximately 1,500 journalists and others who care about the future of the news. But before you arrive on campus, it helps to know what resources here can best contribute to your work, including those at the Nieman Foundation — Nieman Lab, Nieman Reports, Nieman Storyboard, or others.

Questions? Contact us at nieman_applications@harvard.edu. I look forward to reading your proposals.

I’m very happy to say that we will again be one of the host organizations for the Google News Lab Fellowships. (Does that name sound new to you? Until this year, this was known as the Google Journalism Fellowship.) Here’s Google’s description:

We seek to develop the next generation of reporters working to inform, engage, and inspire people around the globe.

The Google News Lab Fellowship offers students interested in journalism and technology the opportunity to spend the summer working at relevant organizations across the US to gain valuable experience and make lifelong contacts and friends. While the work of each host organization is unique, Fellows have opportunities to research and write stories, contribute to open source data programs, and create timely data to accurately frame public debates about issues in the U.S. and the world…

The 10-week Fellowship begins at Google’s World Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. After a few days at the Googleplex, Fellows will spend the next 9 weeks embedded on projects at one of the host organizations…

We’re looking for students who are passionate about reporting and the role that technology can play in the pursuit of the craft. You must be a U.S. student or a student studying in the U.S. with a relevant visa to qualify. That said, we welcome students from all majors and degree programs.

It’s a chance to come spend time in Cambridge working with us as we research and report on the future of news — writing stories, working on projects, and generally trying to learn more about where the news ecosystem is headed.

We’re one of 8 journalism institutions that will be hosting Google News Lab Fellows this year. The others are pretty great, too: the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Pew Research Center, Poynter, Matter Ventures, ProPublica, the Investigative Reporters & Editors, and Witness.

In previous years, you could only apply to a single host organization, but that’s changed this year: You can now apply to as many as you’d like. (You still apply to each individually, though. And fair warning: We get a lot of applications, so spraying every organization with undifferentiated applications probably won’t be successful. Making it clear that you actually know a little about Nieman Lab and what we do is a big help.)

There’s a stipend: $8,500 for the 10 weeks, plus a travel budget of $1,000. And note that only U.S. citizens and those who already have the right to work in the U.S. are eligible to apply. (Though all may not be lost for non-Americans; Google is also sponsoring News Lab Fellows in the U.K., Australia, and South Korea this year.)

You can read a FAQ with much more detail here. Most importantly, the deadline to apply is December 15 January 15. (Update, Dec. 16: Google pushed back the deadline a month.) We’ve been very lucky to have four Google fellows over the past few years, and they’ve all been terrific — perhaps you’ll be the fifth.

(One last nomenclature-related thing: Even though this uses the word “fellowship” in its title and is based at the Nieman Foundation, note that it’s quite different than our traditional Nieman Fellowships, which allow working journalists to come spend a year taking classes and working on a course of study at Harvard. This is an opportunity for a student to come work with Nieman Lab staff for the summer, reporting on the future of journalism. Apologies in advance to anyone confused by the terminology.)

The job’s pretty easy to describe: You see all the stories on this website? The ones about journalism innovation — changes in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for? This job is about coming up with, reporting out, and writing those stories. There are some other duties, of course, like helping run our social media presence, but it’s a reporting job at its core. If you’ve ever thought I’d be good at writing Nieman Lab stories, I’d encourage you to apply.

This person will join our little five-person Harvard newsroom. She or he will also be joining the larger Nieman Foundation, which does a lot of exciting things for journalism and for journalists. (That’s our home, Walter Lippmann House, above; it’s nice.) For more details, see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing.

One note about the position: To be considered for it, you’ll have to apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. (Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process. But if you have specific questions about the job, feel free to drop me a line.)

(Of course, there’s much more than this: We published 191 articles and 652 What We’re Readings in that span. Explore the archives at your leisure.)

1. Serial meets The X-Files in Limetown, a fictional podcast drawing raves after just one episode (Laura Hazard Owen, August 28)

2. The New York Times built a Slack bot to help decide which stories to post to social media (Shan Wang, August 13)

3. How 7 news organizations are using Slack to work better and differently (Laura, July 30)

4. What happened after 7 news sites got rid of reader comments (Justin Ellis, September 16)

5. As giant platforms rise, local news is getting crushed (Joshua Benton, September 1)

6. Newsonomics: The halving of America’s daily newsrooms (Ken Doctor, July 28)

7. The New York Times liveblogged last night’s GOP debate directly from Slack (Shan, August 7)

8. Newsonomics: Do newspaper companies have a strategy beyond milking papers for profit? (Ken, July 9)

9. How The Skimm’s passionate readership helped its newsletter grow to 1.5 million subscribers (Justin, August 18)

10. The New York Times is publishing on WhatsApp for the first time, covering Pope Francis (Madeline Welsh, July 6)

11. “It’s like seeing your grandpa in a nightclub”: The New York Times’ challenge in building a digital brand (Josh, August 3)

12. There is a solution to the problem of your giant stack of unread New Yorker magazines (Laura, September 14)

13. Push it: A look behind the scenes of a New York Times mobile alert (Joseph Lichterman, August 10)

14. R.I.P. Dan Reimold, a top scholar of how college media is evolving (Josh, August 21)

15. Putting the public into public media membership (Melody Kramer, July 13)

It’s part of HUBweek, a city-wide set of events to “celebrate the world-changing work, art and thinking being imagined and built in Greater Boston.” This particular event is hosted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard (of which Nieman Lab is a part), with support from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and The Boston Globe.

Here are the speakers we’ll be hearing from at the event, which will be held Tuesday, October 6 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall:

Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab and a noted entrepreneur, activist, and former professional DJ

Tom Ashbrook, host of the public radio program On Point, a veteran of the startup world, and a former Nieman Fellow

Ben Mezrich, author of the bestseller The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, the book that became the movie The Social Network

Kara Miller, host of WGBH Radio’s Innovation Hub and a contributor to national NPR programs

Hiawatha Bray, the longtime technology writer for The Boston Globe and author of You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves.

Judy Norsigian, a cofounder of Our Bodies Ourselves and an internationally renowned speaker and author on women’s health

Laurie Penny, a writer, speaker, feminist, and activist in the areas of digital rights, social justice, technology, and culture, and a former Nieman Fellow

The event will be hosted by Steve Almond, author of many books, most recently Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto, and narrative writing instructor at the Nieman Foundation.

As you can see, it’s a terrific lineup, and it promises to be an entertaining and enlightening evening. If you’re in the Boston area, you should join us! Tickets are $12; more information here.

— 1547: The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the last pitched battle between the armies of England and Scotland, took place on the banks of the River Esk.

— 1935: Huey Long, the Kingfish, died after being shot two days earlier in the Louisiana State Capitol.

— 1968: Big Daddy Kane was born.

— 1972: The U.S. men’s basketball team “lost” in the Olympic final to the Soviet Union, its first international defeat.

— 1974: Guinea-Bissau became an independent nation.

— 2008: The Large Hadron Collider was powered up for the first time.

— 2015: Nieman Lab holds a happy hour for journalists, technologists, business-side types, and anyone else interested in the future of news.

Yes, it’s the long-awaited return of our once-monthly, occasionally occasional happy hour for Bostonians and near-Bostonians. You should come have a drink with us this Thursday, September 10, at 6 p.m. or so. We’re doing it again at The Field, which is in Central Square, roughly 8.2 seconds’ walk from the Central Square T stop and thus easily accessible to anyone with a Charlie Card.

You’ll probably find us in the side room on the left or on the patio out back, if it’s not raining. First five people to come up to me and repeat the magic phrase — “Every man a king, but no one wears a crown” — get a free beer on me.

It’s a great group, as it is every year. A few of the names will be familiar to Nieman Lab readers — we wrote about Grzegorz Piechota back in 2012, and we’ve written about Mónica Guzmán several times over the years.

You can find the new fellows’ Twitter handles here, and more information about the fellowship is here. Meanwhile, here are the ideas they’ll be exploring at Harvard starting this fall — the Americans listed first, then the internationals.

And if you’re a journalist who’d benefit from a year to step back from your daily work and work on something bigger, the next application cycle is only a few months away.

Debra Adams Simmons, a senior news executive at Advance Local, the parent company of a group of metro news organizations, will study the impact of the digital news transformation on newsroom leadership and diversity, media ethics and local communities.

Mariah Blake, most recently a senior reporter for Mother Jones, will study the intersection of science and U.S. government policy.

Christopher Borrelli, a features writer at the Chicago Tribune, plans to study the decline of regional identities in the United States and the role that income inequality and social policy play in that change.

Andrea Bruce, a conflict photographer, will study the history of democratic theory and new storytelling techniques beyond photography.

Christa Case Bryant, Jerusalem bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor, will study the technology and international politics of cybersecurity, with a particular focus on cyberwarfare.

Mónica Guzmán, technology and media columnist for GeekWire, The Daily Beast and Columbia Journalism Review, will study how journalists can rethink their roles to meet the demands of online public discourse.

Mary Meehan, a writer at the Lexington Herald-Leader, will examine the impact of the Affordable Care Act and barriers to sustained health improvement among the previously uninsured.

Todd Pitman, Bangkok bureau chief for The Associated Press, will study the causes and consequences of military intervention in emerging nations and examine ways to advance reporting in countries under army rule.

Wendi C. Thomas, a columnist for the Memphis Flyer, will study how to deepen the public conversation on economic justice using a multimedia news website and civic engagement campaign.

Kim Tingley, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, will study the history and philosophy of science, specifically the science of navigation and its relationship to memory and sense of place.

Christopher Weyant, a cartoonist for The New Yorker, will study the repositioning of editorial cartoons as a critical asset to journalism’s digital business model.

Christine Willmsen, an investigative reporter for The Seattle Times, will study emerging toxins and chemicals that impact the health and safety of our workforce.

Wonbo Woo, a producer for NBC News, will study the way major media events impact communities and examine the collateral effects of competitive news coverage on towns and residents after the spotlight fades.

Cansu Çamlibel (Turkey), a writer and senior diplomatic correspondent for Hürriyet, will study the rise of political Islam and how religion shaped contemporary Turkish political discourse.

Naomi Darom (Israel), a writer at Haaretz, will study the relationship between feminism and the messages about gender conveyed by popular culture.

Tim de Gier (Netherlands), head of digital and a staff writer for Vrij Nederland,will study the intersection of modern leftist theory and the political and economic challenges of digital technology.

Fan Wenxin (China), a reporter for Bloomberg News, will study how China’s domestic politics and economy impact its relations with other countries.

Olivia Laing (UK), a writer and critic for The Guardian and New Statesman, will study literature and the crosscurrents between art and trauma.

Hamish Macdonald (Australia), international affairs correspondent for ABC News, will study the intersection of traditional international affairs reporting with innovative, contemporary modes of storytelling to develop new models for collaboration and delivery.

Stephen Maher (Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellow), a political columnist at Postmedia News, will study the use and abuse of surveillance in the absence of effective civilian oversight.

Fabiano Maisonnave (Knight Latin American Nieman Fellow, Brazil), a senior reporter and editorial writer at Folha de S.Paulo, will study the impact of social and economic policies on inequality and the environment in developing countries.

Grzegorz Piechota (Poland), head of the Innovation Lab at the Warsaw-based Gazeta Wyborcza, will study patterns in digital news content engagement to identify best practices.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind (UK/Sweden), a documentary photographer, will study the ways women are portrayed in ancient and modern conflict.

Fungai Tichawangana (Zimbabwe), managing editor of Zimbo Jam, Zimbabwe’s leading arts and culture website, will study digital storytelling techniques, the development of interactive media and online security.

The other day, someone called me at work and asked me, What’s the future of journalism? As calmly and politely as I could, I replied, I don’t know what the future of journalism is.

I’ve been asked to predict the future a couple of times. It comes with the territory I guess. What are the hot trends?, people want to know. Where do you see this all going? They want to hear about drones and wearables, lists and quizzes, social media reporting and viral content strategies. They want optimism — solutions journalism!

Media reporting is a strange beat, characterized by a very niche, very loyal, very enthusiastic audience. Hamilton Nolan has a funny post on Gawker today that is ostensibly about Jill Abramson’s book deal, but is actually about media reporting, and the way in which its perceived importance is a direct inverse of its actual importance. Nolan is, of course, a sometime media reporter himself, and he has defended the importance of what he considers to be a dying practice. But he remains clear-eyed:

As a participant in the news media’s battles to remain the bedrock of an informed society, allow me to point out: most people don’t care about this. News about the media is hands-down the single category of news whose importance and public appeal is most overestimated by people who are employed in all aspects of the media.

A few months ago, I actually pitched a piece of media criticism to Gawker myself. I wanted to decry a trend I saw popping up all over the place, known as the “recent Internet history.” The general idea is to track a meme from its birth, detailing how an image or a phrase grows from a single user to a subculture of users to widespread adoption. The critical inquiry of these pieces, which usually involved no more than a Twitter search, was surface-level, I wanted to argue. The format is navel-gazing, interesting only to those whose lives revolve around tweets; only journalists write these stories, and only journalists read them.

But the piece fizzled because, riled up as I was, when it came time to write it, I couldn’t make it angry enough. Who was I really mad at, anyway? I asked myself. Is this about web writers doing shoddy, self-centered journalism, or is it about the sense of vertigo media reporting starts to give you after a while? The warm embrace of abject cynicism grows tempting when you’ve been staring into the content abyss for too long. Anyone who reads my garbage tweets knows what I’m talking about.

But as my friend (and former Nieman Fellow) Betsy O’Donovan (no relation) recently pointed out, the line between healthy skepticism and obliterating cynicism is an important one. In fact, Betsy made this point when writing about the sudden passing of widely beloved and appreciated media reporter David Carr.

Everyone’s written about him, thousands of words of eulogy. I’ll just say that Carr managed the trick that I most admire: He was skeptical without ever seeming cynical. In fact, he seemed as skeptical of cynicism as he was of any other pat answer.

So don’t ban media reporting. In fact, I think everyone should be a media reporter, at least for a while. This beat gives reporters something truly rare: the time and space to really observe the industry in which they’re toiling. The thousand-foot view of the media landscape that I’ve been afforded is invaluable, and will remain an asset as I navigate the rest of my career in journalism. I wish more reporters had the same opportunity.

I don’t know what the future of journalism is. I know that Snapchat isn’t television. I know that blogs aren’t dead. I know that Twitter isn’t over. I know that people still read print. I know what CPMs publishers want, and I know what CPMs publishers get. I know some, but not all, of the tricks they rely on to nudge those numbers up. I know that brands can sell — really sell. I know that storytelling is a buzzword. I know that not all content is created equal.

I do worry about the constant churn of posts and stories and articles in this industry. I wonder sometimes if anyone understands what the motivation behind all the content is. I worry about young writers with big platforms who don’t get the editing, the support, and the guidance that they need. I do not worry about young readers, who are getting more information, news, and entertainment funnelled at their shiny plastic brains in more creative and unique ways than ever before in human history.

I believe that, in the future, journalism is going to be okay. I believe in a better CMS. I believe in wildly absorbing interactive news apps and games. I believe in beautiful stories told in VR.1 I believe in drone-assisted investigations, in nonprofit reportage, in small magazines, in speedy and secure communication between journalists and sources, in data big and small.

And I believe, as ever, in great content.

1. but not AR, sorry

Well, in this case, it’s not Publish you have to hit, but an important deadline is coming up for American journalists: January 31 is the last day you can apply for a Nieman Fellowship.

(Sorry, Everyone Else In the World: Your deadline was back in December.)

For those unaware, a Nieman Fellowship allows a couple dozen journalists — half American, half international — to come spend an academic year at Harvard, studying whatever they choose and improving themselves as journalists. Every fellow tackles that task in a different way — some do deep academic study in a subject they cover; some work on exploring new areas of interest; some focus on learning new ways of storytelling; some learn more about the media business or digital disruption. It’s up to each fellow to figure out the best way to take advantage of the intellectual riches of Harvard (and MIT, and Cambridge, and Boston). And in a lot of cases, the biggest gift ends up being time: the chance to step away from your job for a year to think the thoughts those aforementioned deadlines sometimes get in the way of.

I was a Nieman Fellow back in 2007-08, before starting Nieman Lab. My boss, Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski, was a fellow too. Here’s how she writes about it:

In ways both obvious and subtle, my Nieman fellowship year worked a special magic on me, challenging the conventions I had about journalism and my place in its ecosystem. Harvard, the curator, the other fellows, and my own independent studies served up a challenge to do more and do better.

As curator of the Nieman Foundation, I now have the privilege of offering others the same transformative experience. I have witnessed many times over the power of a Nieman fellowship to coax and inspire journalists toward a greater ambition for their industry and their craft.

I have watched new leaders emerge and return to their newsrooms with expanded vision. I have seen innovations in storytelling, news reporting, technology and organization emerge from our fellows’ singular and collective labors. I have seen journalism made stronger.

Application details are here, and you’ve still got time to get everything together. The key bits are a brief personal statement and an outline of what you’d like to focus on here; we also ask for some clips and recommendations. If you’re interested, John Breen would be happy to answer any questions about application logistics, and I’d be happy to answer any questions about the fellowship or Nieman.

I’m very happy to say that we will again be one of the host organizations for the Google Journalism Fellowships. Here’s Google’s description:

In an effort to help develop the next crop of reporters working to keep people around the globe informed, educated and entertained, we have created the Google Journalism Fellowship. As a company dedicated to organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful, Google recognizes that behind many blue links is a journalist and that quality journalism is a key ingredient of a vibrant and functioning society.

This program is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students of all disciplines interested in using technology to tell stories in new and dynamic ways. The Fellows will get the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to a variety of organizations — from those that are steeped in investigative journalism to those working for press freedom around the world and from those forging new approaches to reporting to those that are helping the industry figure out its future in the digital age.

There will be a focus on data driven journalism, building news apps, online free expression and rethinking the business of journalism. The 10-week long Fellowship will open with time spent at Google followed by nine weeks at one of the participating organizations.

It’s a chance to come spend time in Cambridge working with us as we research and report on the future of news — writing stories, working on projects, and generally trying to learn more about where the news ecosystem is headed.

We’re one of 10 journalism institutions that will be hosting Google Journalism Fellows this year, up from eight last year. The other nine are pretty great, too: the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, Poynter, PRI.org, ProPublica, the Sunlight Foundation, and The Texas Tribune.

The way it works is that you pick one specific host organization to apply to — so if, say, investigative reporting was your main interest, you might pick CIR, IRE, or ProPublica. In your application, you can also choose to allow the other host organizations to consider at your application if your first choice doesn’t select you. (Some real talk, though: We get enough applications — many hundreds — that logistically, it’s unlikely that you’ll be considered by a host other than the one you select as your top choice. So pick well!)

There’s a stipend: $8,500 for the 10 weeks (which runs June 8 to August 14), plus a travel budget of $1,000. And note this eligibility requirement from Google: “[W]e are only accepting U.S. students or students based in the United States and eligible to work in the U.S., if your host organization is located in the U.S. (e.g. U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, and individuals with a current U.S. student visa).”

You can read an FAQ about the program (including eligibility info), learn about all the host institutions, and apply. The application deadline is January 31.

(One last nomenclature-related thing: Even though this uses the word “fellowship” in its title and is based at the Nieman Foundation, note that it’s quite different than our traditional Nieman Fellowships, which allow working journalists to come spend a year taking classes and working on a course of study at Harvard. This is an opportunity for a student to come work with Nieman Lab staff for the summer, reporting on the future of journalism. Apologies in advance to anyone confused by the terminology.)

This job will join our little Harvard newsroom (currently made up of three reporters and me) to report on journalism innovation — innovation in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for — with a particular focus on how mobile is changing the news. If you enjoy the sort of stories you read here and would like a chance to report, write (and maybe edit) them full time, you might be a good candidate. (Also, not a requirement, but people with skills and experience in editing and/or coding are particularly welcome to apply.) For more details, see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing linked above.

Two notes about the position:

— Because of the way Harvard hiring works, the job posting lists this position as “a term appointment ending June 30, 2015,” which might seem strange at first. But many Harvard jobs of this type are officially run as a series of one-year term appointments that end at the end of Harvard’s fiscal year. In the six years since the Lab launched, every full-time position we’ve had has been posted under these terms, and every one of them has been renewed every year. Changes in funding or priority could alter that in the future, of course, but if we’re happy with the work being done, our expectation is that this person would stay well beyond that date. Don’t let it be a hindrance to applying.

— To be considered for the position, you must apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. (Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process. But if you have specific questions about the job, feel free to drop me a line.)

This job will join our bustling little Harvard newsroom (currently made up of three reporters and me) to report on journalism innovation — innovation in how news gets reported, produced, distributed, discovered, consumed, and paid for. If you enjoy the sort of stories you read here and would like a chance to report, write, and edit them full time, you might be a good candidate. For more details, see my writeup from a previous time we had an opening and, of course, the job listing linked above.

A few notes about the position, which is awesome:

— While we’ll look at candidates with different levels of experience, I’m particularly looking for someone who would be able to split time between writing and editing. Someone who already has some experience and skill in that part of the job — assigning stories, working with freelancers, editing copy, writing headlines, making art decisions, and so on — would be especially welcome to apply.

— This person’s work would have a special emphasis on mobile: how smartphones (and to a lesser degree tablets) are changing the landscape of news.

— Because of the way Harvard hiring works, the job posting lists this position as “a term appointment ending June 30, 2014.” Many (nearly all, I believe) Harvard jobs of this type are officially run as a series of one-year term appointments that end at the end of Harvard’s fiscal year. In the five years since the Lab launched, every full-time position we’ve had has been posted under these terms, and every one of them has been renewed every year. Changes in funding could alter that in the future, of course, but if we’re happy with the work being done, our expectation is that this person would stay well beyond that date. Don’t let that be a hindrance.

— To be considered for the position, you must apply at the Harvard HR site linked above, where you should include a cover letter telling me why you think you’d be right for the job. (Don’t email me a resume directly; I’m not allowed to consider anyone who doesn’t go through the official HR process.)

— 1803: Marbury v. Madison was decided, instituting the idea of judicial review in American courts.

— 1848: Louis-Philippe, the last king of France (though not its last monarch), abdicated the throne amid that year’s wave of revolutions.

— 1942: A lost weather balloon (or so they tell us!) was misconstrued as an alien attack in Los Angeles.

— 1991: John Charles Daly, most famous as the host of What’s My Line but also the radio journalist who had the first broadcast updates on the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941, died.

— 1996: February 24 was celebrated as Leap Day for the final time in the European Union and the Catholic Church (really!).

— 2014: Nieman Lab holds a happy hour for journalists, technologists, business-side types, and anyone else interested in the future of news.

Yes, it’s the return of our sometimes monthly, occasionally occasional happy hour for Bostonians and near-Bostonians. You should come have a drink with us this Monday, February 24, at 6 p.m. or so. We’re doing it again at The Field, which is in Central Square, roughly 8.2 seconds’ walk from the Central Square T stop and thus easily accessible to anyone with a Charlie Card.

You’ll probably find us in the side room on the left. First five people to come up to me and repeat the magic phrase — “Je suis le prétendant au trône de France” — get a free beer on me.

So I want to have a chance to meet some of you nice folks while I’m in town for tonight’s Canadian Journalism Foundation panel with some of Canada’s top news executives, which I’m moderating. (Top people from The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Postmedia, and La Presse. The event is sold out, but at this writing there are still tickets available for the overflow room, and it’ll be livestreamed and later aired on CPAC, Canada’s version of C-SPAN.)

So if you’re a Toronto Nieman Lab reader, or just someone interested in the news business, come hang out with me and your peers at an impromptu Nieman Lab happy hour — after work Friday, January 24, at Bar Wellington (520 Wellington Street West). I’ll get there around 5 p.m. and stick around for at least a couple hours. No idea how many people will be joining us — could be 10, could be 40! — but come say hello and talk a little shop. (Look for us upstairs. I’ll try to, I dunno, carry a newspaper or something as a clue.)

First eight people to come up to me and repeat the magic phrase — Cyril Knowlton Nash — get a beer on me.

If you’re not familiar: The Nieman Fellowships have, for three-quarters of a century, brought talented journalists to Harvard for a year of study. These days, it’s 24 journalists (half Americans, half from the rest of the world) who have proposed a course of study and explained why both they and journalism more broadly would benefit from their spending time here.

I came to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow in 2007, and in the years since I’ve seen nearly 200 great journalists grow their brains, explore new areas of knowledge, and deepen their capacity to do great work. It’s really a tremendous experience.

If you’re an American citizen, the deadline to apply is coming up — January 31, to be precise. (If you’re not a U.S. citizen, sorry, your deadline was back in December — but see the exception below.)

You can read much more about the fellowship on the Nieman Foundation website: the program at a glance, eligibility information, what we pay, types of fellowships, and maybe most practically, how to apply. But another way to get a handle on the fellowship is simply to read the bios of our current class of fellows. They’re a very impressive group, but I’d also wager that a lot of people reading this could imagine themselves in their number.

What does applying entail? Again, read the full details, but the basics are a personal statement, a proposed course of study, some samples of your work, and some recommendations. If you have any questions about the fellowship itself, I’m happy to answer questions. (If you have specific questions about the application process and requirements, best to reach out to our fellowship administrator John Breen.)

One other note: January 31 is also the deadline to apply for a Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation.

The Nieman-Berkman Fellowship is a lot like the regular Nieman Fellowship, with a few key differences:

— Applicants must propose a course of study or project specifically relating to journalism innovation. (Proposals for the regular Nieman can, of course, focus on journalism innovation too! It’s just a requirement for the Nieman-Berkman.)

— It’s actually two fellowships in one: a full Nieman Fellowship and a full Berkman Fellowship. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard is a premier center for the study of technology and its impact on the world. You get to be an integral part of both communities, which is an enormous privilege.

— It’s open to a wider group of applicants. While the Nieman Fellowship is open only to full-time journalists (including freelancers), the Nieman-Berkman Fellowship is also open to people who work in fields that support journalism — including the technology, business, and academic worlds.

— It’s open to both U.S. and international applicants. (That’s the exception I mentioned above — it’s not too late to apply for a Nieman-Berkman if you’re not an American citizen.)

Much more about the Nieman-Berkman here.

The 25 Most Popular Nieman Lab Stories of 2013

In rough chronological order, and with a pinch of design inspiration from BuzzFeed.

posted on December 27, 2013 at 10:00am EST

The newsonomics of a news company of the future

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The Financial Times is ahead of the curve in harnessing data on its customers — both readers and advertisers — to optimize revenue. By Ken Doctor.

Jake Levine: Why learning to code isn’t as important as learning to build something

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“Programming is a means to an end, not an end in itself. You should be trying to do as little of it as possible to make the thing that you want.” By Jake Levine.

The newsonomics of Why Paywalls Now?

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Paywalls are generating real money for American newspapers in 2013. But would they have in 2007, or 2002, or 1997? By Ken Doctor.

Habemus opinionem: The New York Times experiments with more structured online comments

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On the occasion of a new pope, the Times offered up a new commenting platform that filtered reader responses by mood and identity. By Justin Ellis.

On Reddit, good links rise to the top — but it can sometimes take a few attempts to get there

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A study of the social news site’s voting behavior finds that about half of its most popular links died quiet deaths on first submission. By Caroline O’Donovan.

Hashtags considered #harmful

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A New York Times social media editor says they don’t attract an audience and “are aesthetically damaging.” By Daniel Victor.

A Dutch crowdfunded news site has raised $1.3 million and hopes for a digital-native journalism

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Says the editor of De Correspondent: “I don’t believe in ‘the news’ in the objective sense of the word. You can describe the world in infinite ways, and ‘the news’ happens to be one of them.” By Loes Witschge.

Not an April Fool’s joke: The New York Times has built a haiku bot

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Times Haiku are generated from stories on the homepage of NYTimes.com, just in time for National Poetry Month. By Justin Ellis.

The newsonomics of the Orange County Register’s contrarian paywall

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Aaron Kushner and Co. are bucking the emerging conventional wisdom around paywalls and trying new twists on some popular ideas. By Ken Doctor.

The end of big (media): When news orgs move from brands to platforms for talent

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“What if news organizations confronted the reality that nearly all media will be ‘social media’ a decade hence?…What if news organizations acknowledged this — or even got out in front of it, ahead of the curve this time — and organized themselves as platforms for talent?” By Nicco Mele and John Wihbey.

Intercontinental collaboration: How 86 journalists in 46 countries can work on a single investigation

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Over 2.5 million files analyzed by a global team of journalists reveal financial information about politicians, fundraisers. and celebrities from over 170 different countries. By Caroline O’Donovan.

Every page is your homepage: Reuters, untied to print metaphor, builds a modern river of news

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Article pages now have added depth and context, providing more opportunities for readers coming from social media to discover more content. By Justin Ellis.

Now websites can send push notifications — not just apps

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At least on the new version of OS X. Untying news alerts from apps is a small step towards a more sophisticated, customizable real-time system for connecting news to the readers who want it. By Joshua Benton.

The newsonomics of Hearst Magazines’ one million new customers

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Most publishers are concentrating on milking more revenue out of existing customers. Hearst is focused on building a new native-to-digital audience. By Ken Doctor.

Evening Edition looks to build beyond its simple model

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The idea of a once-a-day summary of news has obvious appeal for people overwhelmed by streams and feeds. But you’ve also got to get that summary in front of readers. By Sarah Darville.

Gawker is letting readers rewrite headlines and reframe articles

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Gawker wants its Kinja platform to be a “truly interactive news platform.” By Adrienne LaFrance.

How to turn everyone in your newsroom into a graphics editor

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A newly open-sourced tool from Quartz makes it easy for newsrooms to build quick, attractive charts from datasets on deadline. By David Yanofsky.

What does the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel know that your newsroom doesn’t?

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In Wisconsin, the state’s largest newspaper has committed itself to tough watchdog, investigative reporting. It’s led to journalistic success and respect from its audience. By Adrienne LaFrance.

The 3 Key Types of BuzzFeed Lists To Learn Before You Die

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How’s a listicle different from a definitive list or a framework list? Adding a little data science and taxonomy to the numerology of the web’s premiere list auteurs. By Caroline O’Donovan.

The newsonomics of “Little Data,” data scientists, and conversion specialists

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The world’s top newspaper companies are realizing they need to invest heavily in data analysis to maximize their business opportunities. By Ken Doctor.

New York Times offers a glimpse at the homepage of the future

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A new NYTimes.com is in the works, and the company is previewing a prototype homepage, section front, and article page. By Justin Ellis.

Matt Waite: How I faced my fears and learned to be good at math

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You might think the principal coder behind PolitiFact took naturally to math. You’d be wrong. By Matt Waite.

Sharing fast and slow: The psychological connection between how we think and how we spread news on social media

ohmagif.com

What drives sharing? It’s a mix of attention, emotion, and reaction. Here’s hard data on which news stories took off and which didn’t on social. By Sonya Song.

The Guardian experiments with a robot-generated newspaper with The Long Good Read

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The paper, printed by The Newspaper Club, is a collection of longform Guardian stories selected and laid out with the help of algorithms. By Justin Ellis.

The blog is dead, long live the blog

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“The Stream might be on the wane but still it dominates. All media on the web and in mobile apps has blog DNA in it and will continue to for a long while.” By Jason Kottke.

I’m very happy to say that we will again be one of the host organizations for the Google Journalism Fellowships. Here’s Google’s description:

In an effort to help develop the next crop of reporters working to keep the world informed, educated and entertained, we have created the Google Journalism Fellowship. As a company dedicated to making the world’s information easily accessible, Google recognizes that behind many blue links is a journalist and that quality journalism is a key ingredient of a vibrant and functioning society.

The program is aimed at undergraduate, graduate and journalism students interested in using technology to tell stories in new and dynamic ways. The Fellows will get the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to a variety of organizations — from those that are steeped in investigative journalism to those working for press freedom around the world and to those that are helping the industry figure out its future in the digital age.

There will be a focus on data driven journalism, online free expression and rethinking the business of journalism. The 10-week long Fellowship will open with a week at Google followed by nine weeks at one of the participating organizations.

It’s a chance to come spend time in Cambridge working with us as we research and report on the future of news — writing stories, working on projects, and generally trying to learn more about where the news ecosystem is headed. Last summer, we were very happy to have Sarah Darville and Linda Kinstler here as our fellows. (Sarah’s now at Chalkbeat New York, née Gotham Schools; Linda’s at The New Republic. You can see the stories Sarah wrote for us here and Linda’s here.)

We’re one of 10 journalism institutions that will be hosting Google Journalism Fellows this year, up from eight last year. The other nine are pretty great, too: the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, Poynter, PRI.org, ProPublica, the Sunlight Foundation, and The Texas Tribune.

The way it works is that you pick one specific host organization to apply to — so if, say, investigative reporting was your main interest, you might pick CIR, IRE, or ProPublica. In your application, you can also choose to allow the seven other host organizations to consider at your application if your first choice doesn’t select you. (Some real talk, though: We get enough applications — over 2,000 last year between all the organizations! — that logistically, it’s unlikely that you’ll be considered by a host other than the one you select as your top choice. So pick well!)

There’s a stipend: $8,000 for the 10 weeks (which starts June 9), plus a travel budget of $1,000. And note this eligibility requirement from Google: “[W]e are only accepting students based in the United States and eligible to work in the U.S., if your host organization is located in the U.S. (e.g. U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, and individuals with a current U.S. student visa).”

You can read an FAQ about the new program (including eligibility info), learn about all the host institutions, and apply. The application deadline is January 31.

(One last nomenclature-related thing: Even though this uses the word “fellowship” in its title and is based at the Nieman Foundation, note that it’s quite different than our traditional Nieman Fellowships, which allow working journalists to come spend a year taking classes and working on a course of study at Harvard. This is an opportunity for a student to come work with Nieman Lab staff for the summer, reporting on the future of journalism. Apologies in advance to anyone confused by the terminology.)

— American and Canadian railroads abandoned local sun-based time for standardized time zones — a.k.a. The Day of Two Noons (1883).

— George Bernard Shaw rejected the money that came with the Nobel Prize, saying: “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize” (1926).

— Steamboat Willie, the Walt Disney animated short, was distributed, introducing the character of Mickey Mouse to the public (1928).

— Nieman Lab holds a happy hour for journalists, technologists, business-side types, and anyone else interested in the future of news (2013).

Yes, it’s the return of our sometimes monthly, occasionally occasional happy hour for Bostonians and near-Bostonians. You should come have a drink with us on this very lovely Monday, November 18, at 6 p.m. or so. We’re doing it again at The Field, which is in Central Square, roughly 8.2 seconds’ walk from the Central Square T stop and thus easily accessible to anyone with a Charlie Card.

Barring unseasonably warm weather (in which case, look for us on the patio in the back), you’ll probably find us in the side room on the left. First five people to come up to me and repeat the magic phrase — “I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler. I don’t like beer” — get a free beer on me.

The Guardian won two awards for its Snowden-driven series on surveillance, and both The Boston Globe and the Boston University News Service took home two prizes for their marathon bombing coverage. The New York Times won three prizes, with one of them going to D3.js, the data visualization SVG engine that’s increasingly taking over the web. (D3 is an open source project built by the brilliant Mike Bostock, whose day job is at the Times. I haven’t checked the archives, but I have to imagine it’s the first JavaScript library to take home a major journalism prize.)

Black Gold Boom, which we wrote about in January, won an award, which Zeega shared in. “Snow Fall” won for large feature, surprising few, and other news orgs we’ve written a lot about — The Texas Tribune, Honolulu Civil Beat, WNYC, ProPublica — were winners. (Also, Nieman Lab won in the topical reporting category, for which we are very grateful.)

Go check out the winners list, which includes links to all their work, and be inspired about what you can pull off online these days.