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Having made the opposite transition, I can say that there are pluses and minuses on both sides. I certainly enjoyed being around reporters, and the programming team was one of the most fun I've ever been on. The computer science wasn't terribly deep (we joked that we mostly take, store, sort, display strings), but it was fun to be able to point people at interesting things you built[1], complex or not. And I do miss working with mostly industry-standard tech. We got re-org'ed out of the newsroom a year before I left, though. Unless you're a huge newspaper with a commitment to the flavor of reporting that requires programming, a dedicated programming team doesn't make sense: better to consolidate at some central, non-newsroom location where you can build common applications for multiple newspapers and radio/tv stations. On the other hand, I now work at YouTube, which is an exceptionally exciting, fun, dynamic (both culturally and pythonically) place to be. The scale makes things very interesting, and we affect people the world over. Oh, and San Francisco. I should probably write a more carefully written blog post... [1] http://projects.ajc.com/names/list/ |
I agree that the industry hasn't shaken totally free of the fucked up financial straights they got themselves into, but as it stands, there are way more developer jobs working on actual journalism projects (not building or maintaining CMSes) than there are developers to fill them (just see http://www.newsnerdjobs.com/ for some examples).
But ultimately you're absolutely right, there are tradeoffs, and working for an insolvent company is one of the ones you have to watch out for, although that's true out in startup land as well. Depends what you're looking for i suppose!
I'd be curious to hear more about what you worked on over at AJC (some of my coworkers were investigative reporters there a few years ago).