Matt Waite | Nieman Journalism Lab

Articles by Matt Waite

Matt Waite is an instructor at the University of Nebraska and works with news organization under the brand Hot Type Consulting. He was the news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times, where he was the principal developer of Politifact, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

@mattwaite

The year we put everything on the table

“What’s the point of the exercise here? Is it to inform people, or to show off what we know and how sophisticated we sound?”

“I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”

“2019 will be academic data journalism’s Walden year. Those of us who care about this stuff are going to go off to a metaphorical cabin in the woods and think about what we’re doing. Deeply.”

The people running the media are the problem

“It’s the safest prediction I could make beyond the sun coming up in the morning: You won’t fix this.”

June 21, 2016

In 60 days, drone journalism will be legally possible in any U.S. newsroom

“There are still challenges, and we haven’t even talked about state and local laws that have been piling up while the FAA lumbered toward today. But the future of drones in journalism is much brighter today than it has ever been.”

February 25, 2016

Why journalists interested in drones should be watching an FAA reauthorization bill

An amendment would make newsrooms’ use of small drones legal in most circumstances, opening up a field that has been wrapped in red tape.

September 8, 2015

The journalist’s guide to drones over (or crashing into) stadiums

If you see a camera crashing from the heavens, chances are very good it wasn’t supposed to be there — journalistic intent or no journalistic intent.

February 15, 2015

New rules governing drone journalism are on the way — and there’s reason to be optimistic

They’re more permissive than some had expected: “Under this regulatory framework, every newsroom will have drones and people certified to fly them. They’ll just be part of the equipment.”

Fewer and fewer shut-off valves

“We will pass from the connections. It makes sense to fact-check a twerking video. Thankfully there’s no thundersnow.”

The drone age is here, and so are the lawyers

“It’s a matter of time — and I think that time is 2014 — until a paparazzo with no training and a drone bought off the Internet crashes into a very pretty face.”

November 13, 2013

Matt Waite: How I faced my fears and learned to be good at math

You might think the principal coder behind PolitiFact took naturally to math. You’d be wrong.

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