Knowing when a field of expertise should be disrupted by technology and being self-motivated to pick up the skills to do so. I taught myself to scrape websites and parse data using Python. This ability enabled me to develop a data driven investigative approach at the Digital Team of the Times of London. I was able to show to journalists and editors the importance of open data. I also used my technical knowledge to advise on how to move the team forward to develop data driven stories.
Knowing when good practice is needed before gaining more skills and seeking out those who can show me. I developed a test-driven-development and object-oriented-approach to software craftsmanship during my time at Makers Academy. Through pair programming I learned good, clean and scalable code practice. Team-based project work honed my version control skills. Mostly, I learned how to approach a coding problem, how to explore new technologies and how to learn them better.
Knowing how to solve problems. I am not just good at solving problems. I am good at communicating them. Not just verbally. I build. I take apart constructs. I reconstruct what I have learned. And I communicate it to the outside world. To those with little or no technical knowledge of what I found or how I found it. I do not just code. I engineer. I do not just enginner. I reengineer.
I do not do things by halves. What you are looking at was meant to be a README...
Maker, June - September 2015
PG Dip, Broadcast Journalism, 2008 - 2009
Masters', Anthropology of Media, 2007 - 2008
Undergraduate, Theoretical Physics, Zoology, 2002 - 2007
May 2013 - June 2015
The programmer-journalist in a three person team spearheading data driven investigative journalism across both Times titles. Worked with journalists to source, clean and analyze data for exclusive stories as well as building prototypes for the interactive developers and online designers.
Projects include Gender Gap and Colossus
January 2012 - January 2013
One year fellowship to hone my coding skills in the area of data journalism. Was awarded the opportunity to be based at the Guardian Interactive team. Spoke at SxSW and Media Party Argentina whilst part of the team. See my Guardian profile with articles and interactive pieces I have worked on.
February 2011 - December 2011
Managed links and relationships between open data scraping and investigative journalism, allowing data to tell its story. Learned to programme and scrape websites in Python and explored the new avenues of data journalism.
September 2010 - February 2011
Producer for CNN's initiative to integrate web and TV, cross platform projects and reporting using social media tools with a focus on television output. Worked across all news shows, sports and prime time feature shows.