"If you've worked in a technical role in news for long enough, you likely remember when the "show your work" spirit was everywhere. Newsroom nerds shared code on GitHub, swapped tips on social media and unfurled long blogs guiding others on how to get things done. You might also have a vague sense that - like reaction GIFs, demotivational posters, and that guy who sang "Chocolate Rain" - you're seeing less of it these days."
"We crunched the numbers, and your hunch is right. In fact, it's probably worse than you think. The data are clear: The open-source culture that defined an earlier era of online journalism has collapsed. Activity on GitHub has cratered. In 2016, news organizations posted more than 2,000 public projects to the code-sharing site. Last year, that number slumped below 400, an 80% decline. It's not just code. Posts to the NICAR-L listserv, once a mandatory part of every data journalist's diet, are down 89% from their peak."
"Some of the drop can be explained by the journalism industry's well-reported recession. A decade ago, Buzzfeed News, Mic and FiveThirtyEight were among the most prolific newsrooms on GitHub. Today, they're either closed or struggling to stay afloat. But it's about more than money. Organizations that flourished online also walked away. At its peak, The New York Times released dozens of public repositories on GitHub each year. In 2024, it posted zero."
"It's not all bad news. A small crop of startups, nonprofits, and other non-traditional news organizations stepped up. Groups like The Pudding, City Bureau, and Bellingcat have pioneered promising new models built on openness, organizing, and inspiration. Unfortunately, their success is overshadowed by the dramatic declines elsewhere."
Open-source practices and community sharing in newsrooms have sharply declined over recent years. Public GitHub activity from news organizations fell from over 2,000 projects in 2016 to under 400 last year, an 80% drop. NICAR-L listserv activity is down 89% from its peak. Some declines relate to industry-wide financial struggles and the closure or shrinking of prominent newsrooms like BuzzFeed News, Mic, and FiveThirtyEight. Other major outlets that once released many public repositories, such as The New York Times, have posted little or nothing recently. A few startups and nonprofits have continued or expanded open efforts, but their impact is limited relative to the broader decline.
Read at Nieman Lab
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