By Patrick Beeson, roanoke.com
Not literally of course, but that's how Washington Post Editor for Editorial Innovations Adrian Holovaty began his discussion of how automation tools can benefit media Web sites. Holovaty was the third of three panelists on the Automated genius and tools panel, moderated by Spokesman Review Online Publisher Ken Sands.
The three panelists, which also included Amy Webb of the nonprofit, independent digital magazine Dragonfire and Ron Parsons of Yahoo! News, all agreed that by automating many of the processes for getting content online, it benefits the news gatherers by providing them more time to work on complex, time-consuming projects.
Webb highlighted her organization's use of Flash templates to simplify photo slide shows and other multimedia items. Parsons showed examples of how Yahoo! News has progressed in its use of automation since starting content syndication in the late '90s.
But it was Holovaty who stole the show with his "the system is broken" speech. By taking what most journalists do for the core of their job -- gathering and disseminating information from sources -- news organizations can automate and leverage that information in new and exciting ways, he said. See Holovaty's PowerPoint presentation
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Examples:
ChicagoCrime.org
