Technologists will only do what they are asked to do. They are great with coming up with solutions to the most complex and equally mundane problems, happy to spend their day analysing data, producing code and rewiring systems but like I said before, they will only perform if you ask them too.

My experience stems from managing the student radio station for two years whilst studying. I was fortunate to have some great computer minds on board who I gave complete freedom to build help build the station up from the pits it was in. Whenever there was a transmission problem, they would sort it out straight away but I realised that they could also build platforms for the future just as easily.

Fast-forward to my working life, I am always shocked to learn that most of the tech people live in a dark side room, away from the editorial and management processes. They are only really called in to fix things then have to scurry away back to the holes. One problem that could be resolve if the techies took over news organisations would be to find productive and commercial use for the huge data sets that most organisations have but currently do not know what to do with all of that information.

I’m sure that they would devise tracking systems for articles linking with other stories online around the globe and encourage the editorial team to produce follow-ups on the same story. They would be watching trending topics and producing stories based on what people are searching for. They could work through the comment sections to find more leads to write up more articles. They should know who the target audience are even in other regions outside of the UK.

Journalism is important but the digital strategy needs to be more important. That digital strategy should not just come from marketing, editorial or even management departments but an inclusive process with the advanced and alpha geeks. News organisations should know what they are doing and follow what they are doing.

So instead of us just finding interesting problems, we should be finding interesting people who have interesting answer. Let’s start raising awareness about the important role of computing and IT for all news operations. Stop acting slow to the take up of digital technologies.

The internet is faster than the education to teach people how to use it.