Recognizing an always-on political news cycle demands immediate updates, the New York Times says its updated its campaign finance API to make updates in real time. This will give them (and other apps using this Application Programming Interface, which allows outside app developers to retrieve the data collected) access to information significantly quicker than prior incarnations.

The API, which initially launched during the 2008 presidential election, previously updated every other week. In some cases, some data updated daily, according to a post about the upgrade from NYT developer Derek Willis. Now, the updates happen within minutes after the FEC receives them (updated every 15 minutes).
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The next time you log onto Facebook to post your latest article, think twice about what you share. Instead of copying in the link, why not share an image from the story instead?

That method worked well for ProPublica. Its graphic of changing congressional support for SOPA and PIPA from Jan 18. to Jan. 19 went viral after being posted on ProPublica’s Facebook page Thursday night. In less than 48 hours, the image received more than 17,000 likes, was shared more than 10,100 times and received a whopping 1,298 comments. And those numbers are still rising.

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Can a good reporter with smarts and some technical savvy become a news app developer? ProPublica, the online news organization that has blazed a path in creating innovative news apps, is offering a paid fellowship to find out.

The News Application Fellowship is a pilot project that will give one person the opportunity to work side-by-side with ProPublica’s News Apps desk and its news app developers. You’ll learn how to create news apps like Dollars for Docs and the Opportunity Gap.

“We know that out there in the news universe there are whip-smart people who are starting to teach themselves how to program by reading books and building stuff they never show anybody; people who want to take their graphics talents to the next level and to start working on the back-end code as well,” reads the description. “If that’s you, hurry up and apply already.” Read more

The role of social media editor is a relatively new, and highly coveted, spot in newsrooms. While there are still a lot of questions about what exactly this job entails, everyone can agree that there needs to be at least one person handling social media for the company full-time.

Photo Credit: Jay Westcott

This past summer, for example, Reuters hired Anthony De Rosa to lead its social media team. And this week, ProPublica announced Daniel Victor as its newest social media editor.

So, what exactly does it take to land the gig? Who better to ask then ProPublica’s newest addition?

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Timelines are an effective storytelling tool that can display information that occurs over time in an attractive, easy to follow format.

While there are many tools available to do the trick, one stands out for its power, and that’s ProPublica’s open source TimelineSetter.

The introduction to TimelineSetter reads like this: “TimelineSetter creates beautiful timelines.”

That’s an understatement.

The timelines created by TimelineSetter are sleek, can incorporate rich media like Google Maps and YouTube videos and can be easily modified. Read more