Chattarati Articles in Editors

Daniel Ryan, Tech Director, to Join Obama Campaign

2011-07-21T14:30:00Z

Chattanooga-based developer Daniel Ryan will join Obama for America as a senior Web developer in August.

Ryan joined Chattarati as technology director in September 2009 after building the liveblogging application, OnLocation, we used for the mayor's state of the city address and subsequent live events. Since then, he developed PressWorks, the custom CMS powering this website, and has played an integral, behind-the-scenes role at Chattarati and The PressCore Inc.

Ryan also co-founded DevChatt, the annual tech conference and expo, and sits on the board of the Young Professionals Association of Chattanooga.

He will be relocating to Chicago for his new position in the Obama campaign and stepping down as Chattarati's technology director next month.

"My 11 years in the Scenic City have been the best of my life. I love Chattanooga and will deeply miss it while I'm away," Ryan said. "It's my belief in the future of the city that led to my involvement with Chattarati, YPAC, DevChatt, etc., and I continue to believe that Chattanooga can be a premier city for education, industry and technology."

"But now I've been asked and humbly accepted a role with a campaign that I know will be a part of American history," he said.

Upon the announcement, Publisher John Hawbaker said, "Daniel is a collaborator and a friend who we will all miss greatly, and his impact on the way Chattarati delivers news and public information cannot be overstated. Through his vision, talent and creativity, Daniel hasn’t just made Chattarati better, he has made Chattanooga better."

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Chattarati Turns 3 Today

2011-07-01T12:30:00Z

There were probably only a hundred local Twitter users in the early part of 2008. And in a mid-sized town with a low adoption rate of new technology, the general rule then was that you followed everyone who was local. That's how I met John Hawbaker.

In April of that year, I received a message from someone I only knew as @jehawbaker. He asked me to contribute to a group blog about Chattanooga. It's called Chattarati, he told me in an email. To which I replied, "Sure thing," but to myself I thought, "I give it two months."

Fast forward three years, and Chattarati has lasted much longer than I ever expected. It's grown into a number of areas I never would have imagined. And I've found myself in the middle of much of it. That group blog, cheekily described as "everything we love and hate about the Scenic City," has become a place for reporting, data visualization, research, multimedia, cultural and social critique, liveblogging, and analysis of some of the most important issues facing our region.

It's still a blog in theory, I guess, in that some of our work is geared toward short posts, repurposing external media, and interjecting the occasional opinion. But to look at Chattarati only through that lens is to miss something bigger that's transpired on this website, the media landscape, and our city. We were an early adopter of social media and liveblogging for example, and I suspect that our efforts in data visualization will soon be replicated across a number of local outlets. At the least, Chattarati has pushed the envelope in terms of what consumers expect from local media, either directly or indirectly.

Media is changing, because the tools to produce it and distribute it are changing. More importantly, the way it's being consumed is bringing about that change at a very rapid rate. Three years ago, the landscape looked much different than it does now. And three years later, it will be something else entirely. The lines between production and consumption will continue to blur. Websites will behave more like applications than publications. News, information and entertainment will be tailored to the individual rather than a broad audience. This has already happened on a meta level. Twitter has turned every consumer into a publisher for his or her circle of influence. "What do you want right now?" is the question preceding every Google search.

In spite of this shift, or because of it, the need for a good news product has never been greater. The "noise" of social media is here to stay. The demand for good content, which is still king in my mind, is rising. New business models are emerging. Technology and the distributive power of the Web are forever altering the way we look at, report on, and understand big issues and big stories. The nonprofit news outlet ProPublica won a Pulitzer last year for its in-depth and engaging reporting on the financial meltdown. The work for which it won the award appeared almost exclusively online. A small staff, operating at a fraction of the cost of the New York Times, was able to use new publishing tools to expose the corruption on Wall Street that led up to the banking crisis. Some of the methods they employed didn't exist a decade ago. The economic and journalistic models fueling their work are just one example of what's to come for an industry that will become increasingly splintered and more diverse in the next three years.

Chattanooga is changing too. Two weeks after Chattarati launched, Volkswagen announced it would build its first U.S. manufacturing plant at Enterprise South. It along with Alstom Power and Amazon.com are fundamentally altering the economic landscape of our region. In the near future, moderate population growth will continue to stress our resources. Consolidation of our governments will be necessary. Chattanooga is a regional experience, and it happens outside the city limits as much as it does in them. We have to come together to address the challenges posed to our infrastructure, our emergency responders, our social services, and our education system.

Because of this, Chattanooga needs more media voices. Not because the current ones are insufficient, but because the challenges we face as a city, as a county, and as a region are so great. We need more participation in the civic process, in planning, in economic development, and in education. We need the collective brainpower of our citizens to help address and solve these challenges.

I have no idea if Chattarati will be around in three years — if we'll be one of those voices or not. As an unfunded operation, there are inherent limitations to what we can do. But I hope we are a part of that discussion. There's so much we want to accomplish. There's so much we have to learn from this place we call home.

In the near future, we will be working on two projects that I'm quite excited about. The first is a Web app that lets residents find and share information about their neighborhoods. The second will be a collection of resources geared toward those who want to become more engaged in local government. I look forward to working on these projects with our contributors. And I look forward to sharing them will all those who follow this website.

Chattarati turns 3 today, and as the editor in chief, I'd like to thank a lot of people who make it possible: To John Hawbaker, who gives it vision, to Daniel Ryan, who keeps it running, to Aaron Collier, who keeps it grounded, to Joe Lance, who asks tough questions, to our contributors, past and present, who've given so much of themselves to it, and to our readers, who give it life and inspire us to do better work.

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Visualizing the Scenic City

2011-04-25T11:00:00Z

This past fall, we began discussing amongst ourselves the role data journalism could play in Chattanooga. We were inspired by Simon Rodgers' work at The Guardian and some of the visualizations from the New York Times. We thought to ourselves, What kind of information falls through the cracks in our city? And how can we make it easier to explore?

To address both these questions, this week we launched Visualizing the Scenic City, a Web page dedicated to local data visualization. The page is a workspace for us to compile, explore and publish information outside the confines of traditional, written narratives.

Many of the projects there will augment traditional stories. For instance, the toolkit we've developed makes it easy for us to create interactive charts and graphs. Other projects are intended to stand on their own.

We're rolling out two today.

The first is a news map that pinpoints where stories on Chattarati occur. We geotagged a large share of articles from the past year, marked them on Google Maps, and created filters for you to drill down and find stories around a geographic area of your choosing. This interface, like our revamped homepage and the blog view, provides yet another way to navigate our website — through location. Additionally, each geotagged article now includes a small map showing where it occurs.

Maps will be an important component of data.chattarati.com. So will timelines.

The second project, What Happened When the Lights Went Out, is an interactive timeline tracking the Electric Power Board's response to the events of April 4, when two thunderstorms shut down parts of the power grid and left over 37,000 customers without electricity. On that one, you can scroll through the timeline, click on a headline, and read more about each individual event.

We've open-sourced the timeline module and welcome improvements from the developer community. We also invite media outlets and bloggers to try it out for themselves. This is the first of several apps we'll be releasing in the near future.

In many respects, Visualizing the Scenic City is an extension of ideas we've been pursuing for some time. We first dipped our toes in the waters of visualization earlier this year with the Visual Report Card series and a story on downtown transportation. One of the goals with each was to bridge the gap between data and some of the issues that affect our daily lives.

But it's also a new direction for Chattarati. The projects require a great deal of time and resources to put together. They are collaborative in nature, often requiring the input of sources, writers, editors, designers and developers. That collaborative nature extends to you, the end-user. We'll soon be adding social functionality to each project, which will enable you to share your own unique findings with friends through Facebook, Twitter, Chattarati and other websites.

We're excited about this initiative and hope it will lay the groundwork for a different kind of Web experience in Chattanooga.

If you have an idea, question or local story you'd like us to explore through data, send an email to editors@chattarati.com.

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Changing the Conversation Begins at the Homepage

2011-03-25T09:00:00Z

When we relaunched Chattarati in November 2009, our approach was to build a collection of blogs around the topics we cover, with a magazine-style homepage. A year later, in an editorial explaining our View From (and to) Somewhere, we discussed how our focus had shifted over time to original, in-depth reporting yet retained a place for curating links to important and interesting stories around the area:

Hopefully over time, that mix will create conversations where we share questions and insights in partnership with our readers, so that everyone is better equipped to participate in civic life.

Today, our latest update helps bring us closer to that goal. The new design of our homepage is still focused on highlighting our original work, with up to five featured stories at the top of the page. And as you scroll down, you'll see a list of the most recent headlines for each top-level section — Metro, Culture, Editorial and Neighborhoods. These lists include not only full-length original stories, but ones that fit the mold of a traditional blog post or simply link out to the work of other media outlets.

We've also introduced a new sidebar that offers several new ways to discover upcoming events or stories you may have missed.

A Sidebar for Discovery

Just below our ad spot (the only one on the page), you'll see a list of the current day's events, along with a link to our full calendar. You can check out events by category or simply look at the full list in chronological order. You can also subscribe to any of the calendars or download an iCal file for an event you want to remember.

And for the event planners among you, it's easy to suggest an event for inclusion on our calendar. In fact, if you have an iCal feed or a Facebook page with related events, we can import all of your events directly. They'll be synced each night so even if you make changes on your site, the calendar listing on our site will be up to date. (Email us to learn more.)

The Quotable and By the Numbers sections in the sidebar will offer short highlights from recent articles, and the latest poll from anywhere on the site will also be featured.

If you'd like to know what your friends are reading, you're in luck. We've integrated two Facebook social plugins — one that shows Recommended Articles, or ones that have been shared frequently on Facebook, and one that allows you to like our page and see which of your friends are already connected.

Testing the recommended articles feature was eye-opening in a rewarding way. It turns out the stories that have been shared most frequently are also some of the ones we're most proud of — those we believe are important, interesting and executed in a unique fashion. So thank you for taking the time to read them and recommend them to your friends.

'New' is What's New

If your media habits are anything like ours, you follow a wide variety of sources to stay informed, and when you return to your favorite sites, your first question is, "What's new?" If you're logged in to Chattarati (you can easily register by connecting a Facebook or Twitter account), we'll answer that question for you at a glance. Each unread headline on the homepage will have a small tag next to it that says "New."

Connect with Chattarati

You can subscribe by RSS or email to our full stream of articles (emails arrive once per day), or pick and choose the blogs you want to subscribe to by RSS. And if you have a story idea, news tip or a question about the news you'd like us to explore, please use the contact form linked at the top of every page.

Mobile Improvements

In addition to refining the layout of our standard website, we've also made a number of usability improvements to our mobile site, particularly for Android devices. If you're on the go, simply hit m.chattarati.com to stay connected.

Credits

As I was writing this column, and peppering him with questions, our Technology Director Daniel Ryan told me that the redesign comprised modifying, optimizing or removing approximately 25 percent of our code base. Many of those changes were actually behind the scenes, designed to enhance performance. Daniel even accidentally made the site more compatible with IE6, but I guess we shouldn't brag about that, right?

Which reminds me of one final, cool new addition. IE9 users can take advantage of the browser's new Pinned Site and Jump List features.

Ultimately, all of these improvements are focused on improving your experience as a reader, and none of them would be possible without Daniel's talent and hard work.

Thanks for reading Chattarati. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's update.

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As Seen on Nieman Journalism Lab

2011-02-18T16:00:00Z

Aaron Collier's education series was recently featured on Nieman Journalism Lab, a Harvard University website that focuses on emerging trends in online journalism.

In the story, Collier and John Hawbaker, Chattarati publisher, talk about the visual report card for math scores in Hamilton County elementary schools. The report card was designed by DJ Trischler.

They also discuss the ins and outs of going through Tennessee's standardized test scores and some of the thinking that led to the series.

If you're interested in getting a behind-the-scenes look at how Chattarati operates, visit Niemanlab.org.

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Readers’ Picks: Top Stories of 2010

2011-01-03T09:00:00Z

Our metro contributors looked back at the stories that shaped Chattanooga in 2010, but which Chattarati articles were popular? Here’s a rundown of local stories you loved, based on readership and interaction.

Metro

Whole Foods to Buy Greenlife Grocery
The companies announced in May that Whole Foods Market would purchase all assets of the locally owned Greenlife Grocery.

Fuel Cell ‘Energy Server’ Installed at EPB
Bloom Energy unveiled its 100-kilowatt 'energy server' — the first to be located outside the state of California — at an event at EPB headquarters on June 28.

Would Tennesseans Be Taxed on Amazon Orders?
At the nexus of regional economic growth and consumers' quest for a good bargain lies a substantial question with a difficult answer.

Tough Introduction to Tennessee’s New Academic Standards
Students were introduced to Tennessee’s new curriculum standards last year. Now, the public will have to grapple with the low achievement scores that education officials have expected for many years.

Foster Defends ‘Right 2 Know’ Salary List
The executive editor of the Times Free Press responds to recent criticism for posting salary lists of governmental employees online. Much of the outcry was related to Erlanger, which is not government-owned but receives some public funds.

Culture

The Babblers Debut at Discoteca, Will Oldham in Tow
A review of the Babblers' performance in Chattanooga with a brief interview with Will Oldham.

Review: ‘Age of Adz’ by Sufjan Stevens
Stevens takes his next step with 'Age of Adz,' and it is onwards and upwards.

Chattanooga Brewing Company Coming to Life on Frazier Ave.
Word of a slated North Chattanooga location of the born-again Chattanooga Brewing Company had some local residents foaming at the mouth — or at least thirsty for a Northshore beer to call their own.

Signs of the Faded Times
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a picture of painted words worth? As it happens, quite a lot. Photographs by Robert Parker.

The Best Patios of the Season
From our fall guide: What better way to enjoy cooler weather than by dining in one of Chattanooga's very finest outdoor spaces?

Neighborhoods

The Main Street Bicycle Co-op Story
Highland Park is home to the Main Street Bicycle Co-op. What is the Co-op and how can it impact our community?

The Tree Tour
There are few better ways to prepare for a long bout of cabin fever than to go on a walk and enjoy the turning of the leaves. And there is no more spectacular collection of trees than in St. Elmo.

Vote for Your Favorite ‘On the Fence’ Design
Southside residents were called to vote on temporary art installations on Main Street.

Police Talk North Chatt Break-ins, Prevention
North Chattanooga residents heard some harrowing crime stats at the Wyatt Community Center.

Cloud Nine, City’s First Hookah Bar Open for Business
A new hookah lounge brings a low-key atmosphere and alternative entertainment to North Chattanooga.

Editorial

Downgrading Downtown
With the completion of the Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebee's restaurants on Market Street, we have two terrifically bad buildings just blocks from our most beautiful, valuable and visited public spaces.

A Recall Will Not Solve Our Problems
In short, what is the plan if the recall is successful?

Jack Lupton Made Chattanooga What it is Today
John Thomas “Jack” Lupton, grandson of one of the founders of the world’s first Coca-Cola bottling company and a key leader in Chattanooga’s revitalization during the 1980s, died in May.

Chattanooga Is Bicycle Friendly. No, Really.
A North Chattanooga resident takes a closer look at some of the city's bicycle friendly amenities.

Widgets & Stone: What Matters Now
Chattanooga is becoming known for innovative ideas, cool events and great places to have great experiences. But what about the spaces — and times — in between?

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Daniel Ryan Joins YPAC Board

2010-11-23T12:15:00Z

Congratulations to Chattarati Technology Director Daniel Ryan, who accepted a nomination to the Young Professionals Association of Chattanooga (YPAC) board of directors for 2011. Ryan, who works as an independent Web developer in Chattanooga, will serve as YPAC's advertising and branding chair.

"If the city is to have a future in industry and innovation, it has to support the next generation of business leaders," he said. "YPAC is one of the best ways I can do my part to see that goal through.

Bradley Chambers, a contributor to our Brainerd neighborhood blog, is also joining the 2011 board as membership chair.

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Our View From (and to) Somewhere

2010-11-23T08:30:00Z

Jay Rosen, media critic and journalism professor at New York University, often talks about the concepts of objectivity and trust in media.

In what he describes as The View from Nowhere, journalists and news organizations make a bid for the public's trust by "advertising the viewlessness of the news producer," or denying the obvious — that everyone has experiences and opinions that influence their work in some way.

Rosen does not reject every notion of objectivity — "the requirement to acknowledge what is, regardless of whether we want it to be that way," for example — but argues against setting an unreachable sort of objectivity up as the basis for trust:

David Weinberger tried to capture it with his phrase: transparency is the new objectivity. My version of that: it's easier to trust in "here's where I'm coming from" than the View from Nowhere. These are two different ways of bidding for the confidence of the users.
In the old way, one says: "I don't have a horse in this race. I don't have a view of the world that I'm defending. I'm just telling you the way it is, and you should accept it because I've done the work and I don't have a stake in the outcome ... "
In the newer way, the logic is different. "Look, I'm not going to pretend that I have no view. Instead, I am going to level with you about where I'm coming from on this. So factor that in when you evaluate my report. Because I've done the work and this is what I've concluded ... "

In and of the Community

So where are we coming from?

Every Chattarati contributor lives and works in Hamilton County, from Chattanooga to East Ridge to Red Bank and Signal Mountain. No one is employed full time by Chattarati, but many of us are professional writers. Others are artists, musicians or Web developers by trade.

Some of us were born here, while others (including myself) are transplants who chose to make this area home. Some of us are liberal, some conservative. Some are navigating the uneasy waters in between. We work and raise families. We volunteer. We vote. We are citizens who blog and, yes, do journalism.

"But why?," you might ask.

We Thrive on Understanding

Chattarati began because, as media consumers, we felt there was something missing. What that was we didn't quite get our heads around until we'd been doing it a while.

We don't thrive on controversy or documenting the latest barbs between opposing sides, but on understanding the stories and issues that impact our daily lives. So when we approach an original story, we try to learn as much as we can and then explain it to our readers.

Rosen describes the process this way:

Knowing your stuff, mastering your beat, being right on the facts, digging under the surface of things, calling around to find out what happened, verifying what you heard. "I'm there, you're not, let me tell you about it." Illuminating a murky situation because you understand it better than almost anyone.

You'll notice this approach in stories like David Morton's Tax Increase? In English, Please, or Aaron Collier's Tough Introduction to Tennessee's New Academic Standards. Both took an in-depth look at difficult topics, making it easier to understand the issues and join the public debate. And both required a great deal of research to arrive at the finished product.

The same principle applies to curating content from around the Web. We follow the news almost religiously and work to pass along the bits that are important, interesting or both — building context along the way. Our pendulum has swung from curation and traditional blogging in the beginning, to original stories in the recent past. Now, we are working to bring our readers the best of each, because they both provide real value.

Hopefully over time, that mix will create conversations where we share questions and insights in partnership with our readers, so that everyone is better equipped to participate in civic life.

Each one of us has a different background — a different from, if you will — and we want to be more open about those unique perspectives. But we're in this together, because we all share a view to somewhere: a better future for the Chattanooga area.

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Net Neutrality, Open Data Among Needs for Community News Organizations

2010-10-08T08:00:00Z

At the Block by Block Community News Summit, Jessica Durkin, a media policy fellow at the New America Foundation, spoke with news startup founders about policies that could impact their organizations. I shared my thoughts on two specific areas: net neutrality and open, digital government data.

Via mediapolicy.newamerica.net

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Your Guide to Fall in the Scenic City

2010-09-22T12:00:00Z

Temperatures are still in the 90s, but the calendar doesn't lie. Fall arrives at 11:09 p.m. tonight.

To help you make the most of the season, we're excited to announce a new section of Chattarati: Fall in the Scenic City. It's an interactive guide to the food, festivals and can't miss activities of the season. We'll feature events, articles and photos — but it can be even better with your help.

How You Can Get Involved

In addition to our own fall stories, we want to help you publish your stories as well. We have several ways for you to get involved.

First, fall is a beautiful season for a beautiful city, and we want to provide a place for photographers — professional, hobbyist or otherwise — to tell a visual story of the seasonal changes and local events as they happen. If you have photos you'd like to contribute to this project, upload them to Chattarati's Flickr group, tag them CHAfall, and they will appear on our fall photos page.

Second, there's so much to do in Chattanooga this season that we can't keep track of it all. Our events calendar is live and interactive, but we need your help in making sure we get the word out about each and every event. Suggest an event and help keep fellow Chattanoogans in the loop.

Third, having a lot to do means there's lots to talk about. If you're on Twitter, put the #CHAfall hashtag on your tweets, and they will appear on the sidebar of the fall guide. You can also follow the Twitter account @CHAfall.

Finally, we have a Facebook page, Fall in Chattanooga, where you can post links and updates, tell us about an exciting event or simply participate in the ongoing conversation. We'll be following along and looking for ideas for new stories, so keep them coming.

Credits

Chattarati's fall guide wouldn't be possible without the help of our excellent team of contributing writers, Technology Director Daniel Ryan and graphic designer Victor Huckabee. A special thanks to each of them for helping us put this project together.

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