This survey helps us understand the needs of the news nerd community.

News Nerd Survey

In order to strengthen and sustain this community, we need to understand its needs. News nerds play many roles as they push for technical and cultural innovation in journalism, and this data helps us figure out how to help each other. Check out the latest edition of the survey.

Thank you to the more than 600 people who filled out the survey in July 2022. The full survey results and salary analysis are now available, in addition to an overall summary of the findings. If you have any questions abut the survey or would like to be a part of its development in the future, reach out to Erika.

Why have we invested in this survey?

This survey helps us understand the community affectionately known as the “news nerds,” the developers, designers, editors, data analysts, and product folks who work in tech and journalism. These folks seek out opportunities to support one another, to build technical and managerial skills, and to create inclusive organizations. This survey helps news nerds, and the organizations like OpenNews that support them, to push for more responsive, equitable news organizations that are better able to serve their communities. Funding from Democracy Fund makes this survey possible.

2022 Survey

After a few quiet years, we’ve brought the survey back to gather new data on how the field of journalism is evolving, as well as who makes up the news nerd community and other groups served by OpenNews. We expect this iteration of the survey will help inform future work and will help us devise a plan for more regular community surveying, especially in the context of much more data about the field from other sources, too.

We released the 2022 survey in stages, with a first look, the overall survey findings, the salary analysis, and a summary presentation.

2017 Survey

In 2017, we expanded the survey with the support of Google News Lab and the contributions of a community advisory group including Soo Oh, John S. Knight Fellow; Jennifer Lee, Google News Lab; and Liam Andrew, The Texas Tribune. Network Impact again developed and administered the survey which received 756 responses. We gathered highlights of the data in a visualization made by Google and shared the findings and next steps.

2016 Survey

In 2016, we conducted the first community survey of people working in journalism technology. The survey was planned by community members Brian Hamman and Scott Klein and developed by the research firm Network Impact. This survey received 514 responses and helped us develop a baseline of understanding of the community and its needs. It was so helpful, we decided to make it an annual resource! We released the results at the 2017 NICAR conference.

Questions?

Let us know if you’d like to discuss the data from the survey or contribute to it in future years.