You’ve probably heard about the massive wildfires in Northern California. You probably know that they’re huge, that over 50 people have died, and that some wineries have burned. You might have seen some pictures.

Unless you’ve been following closely, though, there’s a lot you’re missing. The vast majority of the reporting has lacked context, been overly sensationalistic, or has outright ignored deeper, more complex stories. It’s far deeper than a story about a natural disaster. When you place the fires in context, they reveal so much about deeper issues facing the state.

Context: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists, The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women.

Reply from a now-deleted account¹:

I’ve been following with interest as Derek Willis explores Caspio, a sort of hosted data-driven web app tool for journalists. The following started out as a comment on his blog, but soon ballooned, so I’m posting it over here where it’ll have more space to breathe.

Of course, for this to make any sense, you should read Derek’s articles first:

1. Outsourcing Database Development, or the Caspio Issue (be sure to also read Caspio CEO David Milliron’s comments, too).
2. On Trials, Software and Otherwise

Like Derek, after reading David Milliron’s reply, I went to go poke at Caspio, and had a very similar experience to Derek, who writes:

There’s a fun thread over at Poynter’s Online News mailing list about what the future might hold for digital journalism. I thought I’d post my contributions here as well:

Steve Yelvington:

For a project I’m working on, I’d be interested in projections, predictions or complete wildass guesses about the near future. Say, 2012, just five years from now.

Hey, this sounds fun! Here are mine:

• The iPhone – that is, the iPhone and the millions of knock-off devices – changes everything.

What a fun morning. The Daily Python-URL carried a link to an Engadget story featuring a picture of the OLPC from PyCon (Ian Bicking’s badge is visible in the background).

Hey, doesn’t that picture look familiar?

Yup, that’s right: Engadget ripped me off. That photo’s licensed under a CC BY-NC license, meaning that even if you pretend that Engadget’s use is non-commercial (on an ad-driven site it’s hard to say, really), without attribution they’re essentially guilty of plagiarism.

I swear, sometimes this programming thing is really just the digital equivalent of baling twine and duct tape.

If you happen to be watching 6News in Lawrence last night, you’d have seen the election results crawling across the bottom of the screen:

Pretty much par for the course in terms of local TV coverage… but do you have any idea how that information gets there?

Let me break it down: