CANCELLED-Talk by SC&I alumna, Allie Kosterich, on her book "News Nerds: Institutional Change in Journalism." 

Journalism, at the core, is the presentation of news through media. The content of news has not changed much over the last century—politicians, wars, crime, and sports dominate past and present headlines. Yet, the ways in which journalists both gather and disseminate information have been turned on their head. Gone are the days of editors assigning stories to writers, who then research, inquire, and write what they found. Today’s journalists are coding, programming, running analytics, and developing apps. These “news nerds” are working in jobs at the intersection of traditional journalist positions and technologically-intensive positions that were once largely separate. Their titles and jobs might differ, but one thing is common: they are using technology differently and the institutionalized view of a professional journalist has changed. Understanding the reasons for that turn, its mechanics, timing, and impact are the goals of this book. News Nerds explores how technological, economic, and societal changes are impacting he institutionalized profession of journalism.

Allie Kosterich draws on a mixed-method research design combining interviews with professional journalists, textual analysis of trade press, and social network analysis of journalist career histories. Taken together, these data reveal the ways in which the institution of the profession of journalism is evolving to incorporate new technological skillsets and new routines of production. In telling these stories and sharing these findings, she directly confronts what happens when new skillsets and new ways of understanding and producing news start to collide with the old routines of journalism.