In today’s digital newsrooms, a software/hardware crash can wipe out decades of text, photos, videos and applications in a fraction of a second. Digital archives can easily become obsolete due to evolving formats and digital systems used by modern media, not to mention media failure, bit-rot and link-rot. Dodging the Memory Hole is an ongoing series of outreach events originated by JDNA that are designed to facilitate cooperation, collaboration and alignment among media companies, memory institutions and other stakeholders committed to preserving the “first rough draft of history” created in digital formats.
We're holding our next event, Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News, in conjunction with the Educopia Institute and the University of California, Los Angeles Library. Join us Oct. 13-14, 2016, at UCLA's Charles E. Young Research Library.
Learn more about previous Dodging the Memory Hole events:
- Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content (2014)
- Dodging the Memory Hole II: An Action Assembly (2015)
- Dodging the Memory Hole: Beyond NDNP (2015)
Stories about Dodging the Memory Hole
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Journalism Digital News Archive
Today, digital archives and ?computer-assisted journalism? are commonplace. Almost all stories, photos, videos and related news assets are now created digitally ? so one might think electronic archives are universal. But it?s not necessarily so. Digital archives may not be as complete or long-lasting as they could/should be.
Digital archives not as complete or long-lasting as they should be — or could be
October 13, 2014 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
In this video, Tom Warhover, executive editor for innovation at the Columbia Missourian, discussed the devastating 2002 loss of more than 15 years worth of content at the Missourian. Archival specialists and journalists will address this problem for the news industry at "Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content."
‘Losing a piece of you’: The fragility of digital news archives
October 23, 2014 -
StoryTracker archives, analyzes ever-evolving news home pages
Unlike static print newspapers, online news pages constantly change as breaking news happens, which raises questions about how to adequately archive, preserve and capture story packages as they appear on a home page. This led Ben Welsh, database producer at the Los Angeles Times, to look for a possible solution. He created StoryTracker.
November 14, 2014 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
The opportunity to advance the preservation of born-digital news is real. That's my takeaway from the Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content forum.
That’s engagement: Forum participants plot course to preserve born-digital news content
November 26, 2014 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
Among the many stories shared at the recent "Dodging the Memory Hole" forum at RJI, none were more gripping and significant than the tale of how the Denver Public Library ended up owning the Rocky Mountain News archive.
How the Denver Public Library ended up owning the Rocky Mountain News archive
December 17, 2014 -
RJI in the news
The news is often called the "first draft of history" and preserved newspapers are some of the most used collections in libraries.
Dodging the Memory Hole: Collaborations to save the news
December 22, 2014 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
It’s been two years since I rolled out of Tucson, Arizona, and headed east on Interstate 10 toward the University of Missouri. I brought audiobooks to pass the hours on cruise control. My first selection was George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
McCainspeakwrite or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
August 21, 2015 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
We started digging our current Memory Hole a few decades ago: Technological systems that support the creation and presentation of modern journalism morphed so quickly that we no longer know where the treasure is buried.
McCainspeakwrite plusgood, or How I came up with the name ‘Dodging the Memory Hole’
August 25, 2015 -
Models for preserving news archives that long served the industry leave digital content in peril
Edward McCain: Today we face a very real memory hole of our own making, especially when it comes to journalism. The move from analog to digital has disrupted the print and broadcast revenue models and seems likely to do so for the foreseeable future.
October 8, 2015 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
In 2002, the Columbia Missourian suffered a server crash. Their backups were hold in an obsolete version of a CMS.
Saving the news: When your server crashes, you could lose decades of digital news content - forever
July 16, 2014
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Donald W. Reynolds