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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Today at the Googleplex, a group of roughly 200 journalists and technologists are talking about how to create a more perfect union between muckrakers and technologists at CIR’s TechRaking conference. The Chicago Tribune’s Brian Boyer gave a seven-minute ignite talk directed toward “the people who are bosses of people who put data on the web.”

Boyer’s metaphor? News apps are like pottery: It’s supposed to be useable; it’s a craft. Does your mug still work when their’s hot coffee inside? Or does the handle force your fingers to touch the cup, burning your skin and rendering the cup unuseable?

The  questions Boyer’s team asks before approaching every project:

1. Who are you users?
2. What are their needs?
3. What can we do for them?

The example he used was for a nursing home database. The users? People with elderly family members in nursing homes. Their need? They read scary reports about nursing home abuse and want to know if grandpa is going to be OK. What can you do for them? Give them a database so they can search for offenses at Grandpa’s nursing home.

Just because you have location data and time information doesn’t mean you need to build a map and a timeline. In the example above, Boyer had the information for nursing home locations and time of incidents, but that’s not what’s useful for people using the app.

“Our work sings when it helps folks find their own story,” Boyer said. Don’t overdo it for the sake of overdoing it.

His final four points:

• Craft is useful
• Fight your urges
• Know your audience
• Make useful stuff

The Center for Investigative Reporting will soon have a new way of sharing watchdog journalism with the masses: An investigative YouTube Channel.

The organization announced today that, in partnership with the Investigative News Network, it will use $800,000 from the Knight Foundation to create a channel that will feature video from contributors like NPR, ABC News, The New York Times, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Center for Public Integrity, American University Investigative Workshop, Independent Television Service and, of course, its own video.

According to a press release, CIR also plans to take submissions from freelance journalists and independent filmmakers.

Social media is a key element of the new project, which CIR and INN will use to engage an audience and promote the journalism.  Read more

If you liked The West Wing or The Social Network and you’re a journalism junkie, then mark your calendars for the debut of Aaron Sorkin’s next HBO premiere: The Newsroom. The trailer is embedded below:

The HBO website describes the show as “a behind-the-scenes look at the people who make a nightly cable-news program.” They elaborate:

Focusing on a network anchor (played by Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), the newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel) and their boss (Sam Waterston), the series tracks their quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles-not to mention their own personal entanglements.

Unlike your typical newsy-type series that is completely detached from how media actually work today, The Newsroom is different — at least if the first trailer is any indication. Momentary snippets of the trailer show video being shared on YouTube, written about in Facebook status updates and posted on The Huffington Post. Maybe this show could be a refreshing, (more) realistic depiction of our industry.

The New York Times reports that the new series will debut on June 24.

It’s a simple site, but it has huge value: News Nerd Jobs.

For those who are seeking or hiring programmer-journalists, the site contains a simple list — in the form of a public Google spreadsheet — of various developer jobs in newsrooms across the country. From the site’s description:

The news business needs people who can code in the public interest and build the digital news products of tomorrow. If you can code, there’s a job for you. Some of the top media companies in the United States are hiring developers right now.

I’d argue that this platform is potentially more effective than a huge database like Monster.com because it’s specifically tailored to coding jobs in journalism. Sure, you can filter big databases down to the kinds of keywords you want, but this site is populated directly by people in newsrooms who are looking for the same kinds of people: journalists who can code. It also helps that, because the site was started by Matt Waite, the network of potential applicants is top notch.

Want to add a listing? Just add a row to the Google Doc.

If you’re ready to hop aboard the Pinterest bandwagon but don’t know where to start, looking to other news organizations can serve as a source of inspiration. We’ve already shared five ways journalists can use Pinterest, five organizations to follow and how The Wall Street Journal is using the new social pinboard. Here are five more organizations to follow — and possibly to mimic if you like their ideas.

1. ProPublica

Board worth noting: ProPublica’s Fracking Board is a visual way for readers to follow a topic extensively covered by the news organization.

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