Hacks/Hackers Philly launches, will host first meetup to connect journalists, technologists

Hacks/Hackers, the grassroots national chapter-based organization that brings together journalists and technologists, now has a Philadelphia group.

Hacks/Hackers Philly, organized by Public School Notebook web editor Erika Owens and Azavea GIS analyst Dana Bauer, will host its first meetup next Tues., Oct. 18 6 p.m. at the Municipal Services Building. RSVP here.

“Anyone with an interest in technology and/or journalism should attend, in particular people with ideas, questions, enthusiasm, and persistence,” said Owens. “We’re thinking the first meetup will be a chance for people to get to know each other and learn about the hacks/hackers concept. We want to see what types of things people in Philly are interested in. Do they want to build projects? Do they want to skill share? Both? Something else?”

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CEO: Inquirer to host startup incubator next year

Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg speaks at Temple University

On a night when dozens of political candidates were making broad proclamations about the future, Greg Osberg stood behind a lectern at Temple University to lay out his vision for the Philadelphia Media Network, the newly formed parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com.

The former Newsweek publisher and CEO of the Philadelphia Media Network was speaking as part of the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation, a speaker series hosted by Temple University’s journalism department.

“It’s going to take a couple of years to pull off this miracle,” he said of the current financial state of the company adding that, in the past five years, the company has lost half of its advertising revenue, 25 percent of subscriptions and 90 percent EBITDA.

After the jump, see eight proclamations Osberg made about the company’s future including his plans to house a startup incubator.

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The Technically Philly ethics policy

In the 18 months of Technically Philly’s existence, we have operated with a strong internal ethics policy that has guided us as we cover this community. We sometimes find ourselves informing interview subjects, readers and advertisers of policies that are well established internally, but aren’t immediately apparent to those outside of TP.

Allow us to do something that is long overdue: share our rules and policies that are core to Technically Philly:

• Above all else, we value transparency. If we make any significant changes to a story, we’ll tell you. If there is a potential conflict of interest, we will disclose it.
• News should be a conversation. If a reader emails, comments, tweets or writes a blog post criticizing, seeking clarification or commenting on our coverage, we will do our best to respond.
• We correct factually incorrect information. If we get something wrong in a post, we will correct it as soon as humanly possible.
• We do our best to avoid editorial and advertising conflicts at all costs. If a TP staff member oversees the sale of an advertisement, he or she will be relieved of all future coverage of that company or person, within reasonable possibility. We will never withhold coverage or comment due to an advertising relationship. Again, any potential conflicts of interest will be disclosed.
• If it’s on the record, it’s on the record. We will not remove content and quotes of a conversation that happened during an on-the-record conversation. That said, like any other journalist, we regularly speak with sources ‘off the record for background,’ as that perspective can help us report our beats more exactly. A source on the record, though, is always the most transparent and something for which we strive.
• Sources do not read stories before they are posted. Please do not ask to see the story before we post, we will not honor any such requests. We may ask for clarification of a quotation or figure, reference or number. We often follow up to do our job more precisely.
• We give credit. We will always link to the sources of a tip or story and expect others to do the same when writing about a topic first reported by TP.
• Sponsored content and advertorial is clearly marked. From time to time we publish pieces written by advertisers. This is no different than an advertorial in a magazine, a traditional revenue stream in publishing. We clearly label all content with full writing credit and advertising disclosure.

We hope that sheds some light on how Technically Philly operates and we welcome your thoughts and criticisms and now back to your regularly scheduled technology news.

BarCamp NewsInnovation is this Saturday

Just as passionate as we are about Philly’s tech scene, we’re downright crazy about local journalism. Heightening our awareness of the city’s news ecosystem is a recently released report by J-Lab that recommends that the William Penn Foundation allocate money to support local public affairs reporting.

That’s why we have organized the second annual BarCamp NewsInnovation, a chance for anyone interested in news to gather and talk about the innovative things they are doing at Temple’s Annenberg Hall this Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Just like BarCamp Philly, this event is FREE.

This year, representatives (see full attendee list) from newspapers around the country, journalism startups and academics have signed up and we’d like to invite our community as well. At the very least to show some Philly pride, but hopefully to help add some fresh voices in the discussion around news and technology.

We hope to see you there!

Links: Bentley Systems CEO talks unemployment, Daily News Pulitzer and More

The Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong reports on a speech given by Greg Bentley, the CEO of infrastructure software company Bentley Systems.

CNET reports that Philly.com is trying its hand at sports gambling for revenue generation.

The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Drexel, Penn and Cheyney universities and Inovio Biomedical were awarded a $2.8 million Pennsylvania state grant to develop a DNA vaccine to treat hepatitis C.

After a more than 10-year dry spell, local journalists in the employ of a Philadelphia daily newspaper have won a prestigious Pulitzer Prize. See the bold Daily News ‘Tainted Justice’ series collected online.

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