Anna Herod – Blog Post 1

Ever since Evan Smith, founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, came to campus to speak my freshman year, I have been interested in learning how to code. The Texas Tribune is one of my favorite media outlets, and as a journalism major, Smith is someone I admire very much. He heavily emphasized the importance of knowing how to code as a young journalist in this new digital age. So, taking this class is something I have been looking forward to.

So far, my experience with coding has been exciting. Although my website is currently very bare and basic, it feels good to know that I created it from the ground up. I really like how this class is set up because I know it will be cool to go through and look at the progress of our sites from project to project. Overall, I have found that knowing how to code (although I am still learning) is nothing short of empowering. It is a wonderful feeling to create something out of nothing and learn the processes between every site that we use in our daily lives.

Speaking of sites we use in our daily lives, I have found that I am extremely inspired by The New York Times’ project page—specifically the Snow Fall project.

I like it because it is so clean looking, and so full of rich content. It includes every aspect you could hope for: in depth stories, photos, videos, gifs, interactive maps—you name it. The journalism of this project inspires me, but on a more general note, I am inspired by the purpose of this site. As I am building my own site, I have found that I am struggling with pinning down a specific purpose for it. I hope that as I progress through out the semester that my site can evolve and have a purpose as crystal clear and evident as Snow Fall’s.