Hacker Journalist

Brian Boyer speaks to classes at Gaylord College.  Photo by: Tyler Jones

    The term “hacker” implies a certain negative quality about what a person does. Most would think of a hacker as someone who does illegal things with computers and lines of coding. A “hacker journalist” essentially has the same job description, but uses his skills with a computer and lines of coding to help tell stories.
    Brian Boyer, editor of the NPR visuals team, is one such hacker journalist. According to an interview with Source, Boyer began programming and studying computer science in high school, and hated it. He started skipping his computer classes and worked with ceramics instead. He continued to try to get away from the programming world with a software consulting job in Chicago. After working at the consulting job for a while, Boyer didn’t feel like he was doing anything good with the talents he had, and pursued journalism.
    After passing the GRE’s and getting his master’s at Medill School of Journalism in Illinois, he went to work for ProPublica, a non-profit, public interest, investigative news organization. Here, he used his coding ability to create an application called ChangeTracker that monitored government websites for any major changes. This is where Boyer’s self-dubbed “hacker journalist” title really took seed. After just a few months at ProPublica, Boyer was hired on at the Chicago Tribune where he built a News Apps team.
    “Bryan coined the term ‘hacker journalist’ to describe what he does as a programmer working in journalism,” said Heather Billings, a hiree of Boyer’s at the Tribune, in an email. “Usually, stories and assets would be scattered across a website’s content management system (CMS). Packaging them this way [using code to uncover documents and creating a custom landing page], outside of the CMS, allows the stories to be presented to readers in a coherent, strategic way.”
    Billings was also kind enough to point out a specific story to me, to help illustrate what Boyer is doing with his “hacking.” Here is a webiste Boyer helped build to help the reporters at the Tribune tell a multi-part story of flame retardants.
    Boyer now works for NPR and is the editor for the Visual Apps Team. He and his team have been creating beautiful websites that emphasize the stories they are trying to convey. On his website, he said that to create these sites, they ask themselves two essential questions:
        1) Who are your users?
        2) What are their needs?
After they’ve answered these questions, they can move on to discussing the features each website will contain.
    Recently, the NPR team developed database of handicapped-accessible playgrounds in America. Not only did they set up the database and create the landing page for the app, but they also used their NPR audience to tell them whether or not their local playground was accessible. If it was accessible, it was put into the database, which created a user-generated data source. 
    Currently, Boyer is working with his team on their Borderland project. Borderland emphasizes the stories of individuals and their journey to cross the Mexican border into the United States. You can look here to see how they created Borderland, and maybe even create your own database.


    Brian explains how his coding and databases work to provide information. 

    WARNING: Video contains adult language. Viewer discretion is advised.

    VIDEO: Tyler Jones
    RUNS: 1:53

Art, With Passion

    New artists come and go in the art world, but those who fuel their passions by doing what they can to help their art thrive, like T-Mike McCloud, will be around for years to come.
    In Norman, Oklahoma, there is a shop that relies on these artists so it can thrive. The shop name is Flamewerkz 33, or McCloud’z Pipes, depending on how long you’ve been a fan. Shop owner T-Mike McCloud has been owner and operator of this store for two years now, originating in the Midwest City/Del City area and moving to Norman just a year ago. T-Mike is a new breed of artist in that he isn’t starving, but rather, is succeeding in funding his art and shop.
    T-Mike owns not only his art studio, but also a property preservation company and a lawn mowing company. With his preservation company, T-Mike goes into homes that need work on them in order to be sold and he and his workers turn them around, making them pieces of art as well. He takes the money he earns from both companies, as well as the revenue from selling art pieces, and uses it to support his family, his shop, his other two companies, and his art. He knows how to truly stretch a dollar to make a living.
    “He’s had to invest his time, money, and pretty much his soul into trying to create a shop where there’s artists available to buy from, where other shops essentially only carry production pieces,” said one of T-Mike’s shopkeepers, Elissa Newmeyer, who goes by her artist name, Elnew. “He’s everything to this company. He is the company.”
    Elnew and T-Mike have learned glass working together and have worked together over the span of the last two years. They compliment each other in their vision for the studio and their passion for their own art as well as artists around the nation.
    “We want to show the fact that there’s an artist side to smoke shops. And we don’t really even want to be known as a smoke shop, we want to be known more as an artist gallery.”
    To create and maintain an art gallery and be an art dealer, it takes more than monetary gain, according to the website Art Business. It says the owner has to have a vision, and everything in the gallery must reflect that vision. The owner must create an identity and stick with it. To do this, the shop has to be specialized. To be specialized, the shop workers must be knowledgable about the work they showcase so the consumers can get a better feel for what it is they are really buying.
    For an art gallery to really thrive, it takes time. Years, in fact. The owner must build a reputation in the community and show them what their gallery is and that they are providing the best art possible and consistently do so. It has to be made known to the public that there is actually something worth while inside the gallery, and it should be noticed and appreciated for years to come.
    T-Mike has been glass working for almost three years, originating in marble work. It wasn’t until he went to a blown glass trade show that he really got into making other functional pieces like pipes. He still mainly focuses on marble work, but continues to venture out and try new things every week. Soon, T-Mike and Elnew plan to host glass working workshops where the public can come and learn a new craft while enjoying the art around them.


I talked to T-Mike and got his take on his store and where he hopes to go from here. He allowed me to video him working on a piece to see his artistic side.

VIDEO: Tyler Jones, runtime 1:02