Matt Thompson Bio
Having graduating from Harvard, Matt Thompson was a Naughton Fellow at the Poynter Institute when he looked into his crystal ball and co-created “EPIC 2014.” This video startled the news industry by presenting an alternative history of the news media set in the future. The original, and its sequel “Epic 2015,” have attracted millions of viewers on the Web and have been cited in media throughout the world. Thompson’s fellowship year at RJI follows an award-winning stint as deputy Web editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Columbia Tomorrow
News Stories with Context
April 30, 2009
Background:
Matt Thompson watched, along with the rest of the nation, as Wall Street CEOs begged Congress for big bailouts. Droves of newspaper reporters and TV crews covered the hearings, but Thompson found that much of the coverage lacked deeper context on what brought once-mighty titans to their knees.
Thompson spent a couple days cobbling together a one-page Web site on the money meltdown, which offered readers links to scores of other stories on the biggest financial mess since the Great Depression. More than 50,000 people visited the page in just one month.
“We typically think the role of the news organization is to lay it out in the story,” Thompson says. “But the story is an inadequate form to contain this.” Instead, this approach provided “a synthesized overview. The real value is context.”
Thompson decided to test his theory with an ultra-local topic – growth and development in Columbia. Thompson partnered with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, the Columbia Missourian and KOMU, to create “Columbia Tomorrow,” a Web site to help citizens understand the context behind the often tedious, but important subject of growth and development of their town.
Q: What is Columbia Tomorrow?
A: Columbia Tomorrow is a product of the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the Missouri School of Journalism. We wanted to serve residents of Columbia with a new type of news site — one that emphasizes not just the latest headlines, but how those headlines fit together into a larger story. To create this site, students and editors from the Missourian, KOMU and RJI spent months researching, reporting, storyboarding, writing, coding, shooting and producing all the content you see here.
Q: How do I navigate the site?
A: The site has a navigation bar on the side of the screen that is present no matter where you go on the site. The site is comprehensive and gives readers information without being bogged down by pages of copy. If you want to read more on a certain topic, you can simply click on the “read more” button to reveal additional information.
For more details on how to use the site watch this video.
Q: What types of information can I find on this site?
A: The site is very user-friendly with a rail of buttons to go deeper on subjects, such as zoning and development. It invites readers to get involved by asking questions such as: “How do we make Columbia the best city on Earth?” Longer features and news stories top off the site with updates on the new wing at Boone Hospital or a discussion on what urban planners see for future commercial and residential projects.
The benefits of the new site are many. For citizens, the Missourian now has a Web site that educates readers on how to understand complex subjects, such as transportation development districts, or how to get involved and be heard before city council.
Q: Why is this site important?
A: It is creating a niche publication. There are many additional uses for this site, other than citizen who want to know more than they are getting from their local media outlets. Other possibilities: developers who want to know what the council is likely to approve, builders who want to get in the first bids and realtors who want to make the first sale.
Thompson often likens his project to Wikipedia as it allows users to keep clicking away to dig as deep as they like, instead of just stopping at one article. “Wiki was once a small set of pages. As information was added, it grew into a super comprehensive site,” he says.
Q: What’s next for the site?
A: Columbia Now will continue to grow and develop into a robust source for news and information about growth and development in Columbia. The Columbia Missourian will continue to maintain and update the site. This will require training reporters and editors to constantly think about keeping the site fresh. That’s especially challenging as the reporting staff changes as new journalism students join the newspaper. Scott Swafford, Missourian city editor will continue to help lead the students to develop the site. “We have to make it an integral part of the work flow, not an afterthought,” Swafford says.