Journalism Digital News Archive
The Journalism Digital News Archive (JDNA) initiative’s mission is to preserve news content originally produced in digital formats. Over the past four decades the transition from analog to digital systems in news media has transformed the way journalistic content is produced and accessed. Like other creators of “born-digital” content, news media have employed a series of evolving file formats and technical infrastructures, many of which are now — or may soon be — obsolete.
In response to these challenges, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute and University of Missouri Libraries saw the need to preserve and maintain the legacy of born-digital news media and established the world’s first digital curator of journalism position. This position laid the groundwork for forming JDNA, with the goal of creating and supporting sustainable systems for preserving born-digital news content. By exploring best practices to archive and access content and resources, including text, photos, video and interactive news apps, JDNA seeks novel approaches for developing scalable digital news preservation enviroments.
Events related to Journalism Digital News Archive
Downloads related to Journalism Digital News Archive
Stories about Journalism Digital News Archive
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Newspaper Archive Summit recorded sessions
Recorded sessions from the Newspaper Archive Summit, held at RJI on April 10–11, 2011.
April 11, 2011 -
Newspaper Archive Summit white paper suggests next steps for stakeholders
A mandate to preserve — a white paper (PDF) — was produced for the Newspaper Archive Summit Network by Victoria McCargar, veteran journalist, archivist and digital curation consultant.
December 6, 2011 -
RJI, University of Missouri Libraries team up to address digital archiving of news
Edward McCain was deeply concerned as he watched the Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen, a newspaper he had once worked for, close its doors without a good system in place to preserve and access its print or online archives.
August 7, 2013 -
Content Matters: An Interview with Edward McCain of the Reynolds Journalism Institute
For this installment of the Content Matters interview series of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Content Working Group I interviewed Edward McCain, digital curator of journalism at RJI and University of Missouri Libraries.
October 7, 2013 -
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 -
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 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
Videos from "Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content," held at RJI on Nov. 10–11, 2014.
Videos from Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Born-digital News Content
November 10, 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 -
Knight grant will help RJI develop born-digital-news preservation model
A $35,000 grant from the Knight News Challenge on libraries will help University of Missouri Libraries and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute develop a long-term model to protect born-digital news content from being lost forever.
January 30, 2015 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
As a digital curator of journalism, I have a tendency to ask people — laypeople and journalists — what types of content they’d like to see or retrieve from news archives. Consistently, photography comes up as one of the top answers.
Preserving a visual record, Part 1
July 23, 2015 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
Let’s return to the Missourian’s photo desk. Aside from not knowing which drive or disk might hold a certain photo, there was a much bigger problem: There was only one copy of each photo file stored on a drive or disk.
Preserving a visual record, Part 2
July 28, 2015 -
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 -
Dodging the Memory Hole conference receives funding from Institute of Museum and Library Services
Among the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grants is funding for the Journalism Digital News Archive’s Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News conference.
April 13, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2015: An Action Assembly
Hocker discusses how the NBC 5 / KXAS archives became part of the University of North Texas' Portal to Texas History.
Keynote: Brian Hocker, KXAS-TV, NBCUniversal
May 4, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2015: An Action Assembly
Edward McCain interviews Brian Hocker about the cooperative project between the Dallas NBC station and the University of North Texas. Hocker is vice president of digital media, programming and research at KXAS-TV, NBCUniversal, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.
Take Action! Public-Private Partnerships: Brian Hocker and Edward McCain
June 16, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2015: An Action Assembly
A team of industry leaders establish an Importance/Difficulty Matrix in order to chart ideas by relative importance and difficulty for furthering public-private partnerships.
Take Action! Public-Private Partnerships: Importance/Difficulty Matrix
July 11, 2016 -
Digital preservation
Journalists are dependent upon access to back files for research and context, but those back files may no longer be there. Almost all news content created in the U.S. today is digital, but digital content is even more fragile than print.
Digital preservation: Why is this important to me?
July 12, 2016 -
Travel scholarships available for graduate students to attend DTMH 2016 at UCLA
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News forum organizers today announced a travel scholarship program for select graduate students to attend the forum at the UCLA Library on Oct. 13 and 14.
July 28, 2016 -
Digital preservation
Most recent news content resides in the back rooms and basements of news agencies across the country. It’s scattered through various forms of media, in all kinds of formats, and often with little organization, management or care.
Digital preservation: What needs to be done?
August 9, 2016 -
Learning to JAM in 5 steps: New initiative reminds journalism students to archive their digital work
Journalists take note: The internet eats your stories for lunch. News professionals who assume someone else is saving their digital output are often shattered to find they have little or nothing to show for years of stressful work on deadline.
August 23, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2014: Saving Born-digital News Content
Clifford Lynch, director of the Coalition for Networked Information, discusses the special qualities of born-digital news and why it should be preserved for the benefit of all society.
Saving born-digital news: Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information
August 25, 2016 -
Digital preservation
The expense of digital preservation for the news producer will vary depending on how much of the effort is managed in-house. By collaborating with those who already have the infrastructure, the cost to news agencies could be very little indeed.
Digital preservation: How much is it going to cost, and who can I work with?
September 21, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Commendable individuals joined us at the Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Online News forum last month at UCLA. Among them was journalist Peter Arnett, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Vietnam for The Associated Press.
War stories: How Arnett’s efforts to save Saigon articles inspire today’s preservation efforts
November 30, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Peter Arnett's presentation at Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Digital News, in which he discusses how he saved the AP's Saigon bureau archives.
Peter Arnett: Saving the AP Saigon bureau archives
December 6, 2016 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Kate Zwaard is the chief of National Digital Initiatives at the Library of Congress, where she leads a new group focused on digital innovation and expanding the use of the digital collections.
Kate Zwaard: Technology and community: Why we need partners, collaborators, and friends
January 26, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Clifford Lynch has led the Coalition for Networked Information since 1997. Prior to joining CNI, Lynch spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last 10 as director of library automation.
Clifford Lynch: Born-digital news preservation in perspective
January 26, 2017 -
Digital preservation
In the face of decreasing revenues and increasing costs, news agencies everywhere are exploring creative methods of extracting more funding from their products. Some methods are more suitable to larger organizations and others to smaller ones.
Monetization of news
February 3, 2017 -
Digital preservation
There are a number of practical steps publishers at news agencies can do to lay the groundwork for preserving our historical record.
Digital preservation: 7 steps to get started
February 8, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Itza Carbajal of New Orleans, Louisiana, is an information studies scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. Her research paper proposes the “incorporation of the concept of web archivability in discussions.”
Itza Carbajal: Web archivability: A pathway towards dialogue
February 13, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Jiwon Choi of Osan, South Korea, is studying convergence journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Her powerpoint project addresses obstacles and solutions to online news archives for international media.
Jiwon Choi: Eliminating the border of digital news archiving
February 13, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Mat Kelly's project addresses the need to provide individuals with ways to collect, archive and access news content they perceive as important.
Mat Kelly: Final Report—Dodging the Memory Hole
February 16, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Terry Britt of Sweetwater, Tennessee, is a doctoral candidate studying journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. His paper deals with deterioration of collective memory over time.
Terry Britt: Saving the future past: Digital news content archiving
March 15, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Matt Hellman of Austin, Texas, is a journalism student at the University of Missouri in Columbia. His project involves a case study of how the Columbia Missourian photography staff is using open source software.
Matthew Hellman: Collective Cookbook: Best practices in visual archiving between news organizations
March 15, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Hanna Soltys of St. Louis studies library and information science at Simmons College in Boston. Her project focuses on a look at the landscape of digital news, why digital news archiving solutions aren’t one-size fits all due to dynamic content.
Hanna Soltys: DTMH 2016 Scholarship Project
March 15, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
John Berlin of Suffolk, Virginia, is a computer science student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he works for the Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group.
John Berlin: Twitter Feed Monitoring and Automatic Archival Through WAIL
March 15, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Tim Groeling is a professor and former chair of the UCLA Department of Communication Studies.
Tim Groeling: Preserving TV News
March 22, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Edward McCain is the digital curator of journalism at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute and the University of Missouri Libraries. Ginny Steel is a university librarian at UCLA.
Edward McCain and Ginny Steele: Welcome
April 27, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Mark Graham is currently Director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, responsible for capturing, preserving and helping people discover and use, more than 1 billion web captures each week.
Mark Graham: Lightning rounds: Archiving news at the Internet Archive
April 27, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Jefferson Bailey is the director of Web Archiving Programs at the Internet Archive.
Jefferson Bailey: Lightning rounds: Supporting Data-Driven Research using News-Related Web Archives
April 27, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Online journalism is at risk of disappearing. We often think of digital words as having permanence; for some, unflattering or invasive details linger way too long. But digital news is actually incredibly fragile.
Memory holes and permanent errors: Part 1
May 4, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
This is part 2 of a white paper, “Memory Holes and Permanent Errors,” which examines whether and how online news archives should preserve corrections, updates and other post-publication changes.
Memory holes and permanent errors: Part 2
May 11, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
Another type of article change to consider in news preservation is the update. Early on, editors realized that the fluidity inherent in the World Wide Web makes this an ideal medium for reporting breaking news.
Memory holes and permanent errors: Part 3
May 18, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016 Scholarship Projects
This is part four of a white paper, “Memory Holes and Permanent Errors,” which examines whether and how online news archives should preserve corrections, updates and other post-publication changes.
Memory holes and permanent errors: Part 4
May 25, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Terry Britt, University of Missouri | Oct. 14, 2016 | the Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
Terry Britt: Lightning rounds: News archives as cornerstones of collective memory
June 7, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Cynthia Joyce has been a writer, editor, and web producer for more than 20 years. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Mississippi Meek School of Journalism in 2011, she worked as a digital producer for several news organizations.
Cynthia Joyce: Lightning rounds: Keyword ‘Katrina’: Re-collecting the unsearchable past
June 8, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Katherine Boss is the Librarian for Journalism, Media, Culture and Communication at New York University.
Katherine Boss: Lightning rounds: Challenges facing preservation of born-digital news applications
June 8, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Kalev Leetaru is a Senior Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security and a member of its Counterterrorism and Intelligence Task Force.
Kalev Leetaru: Lightning Rounds: A Look Inside the World’s Largest Initiative to Archive News
June 8, 2017 -
Journalism Digital News Archive
The next Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Online News forum will be held Nov. 15-16 at the Internet Archive in San Francisco. Your participation in DTMH 2017 will advance the exchange of knowledge of digital preservation.
Call for contributions: Dodging the Memory Hole 2017: Saving Online News
June 16, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
A panel discussion on the modernizing of The New York Times archive with Evan Sandhaus, Jane Cotler and Sophia Van Valkenburg.
Panel: The future of the past: Modernizing The New York Times archive
July 12, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
In July 2011, Jennifer A. Younger became the executive director for the Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA) after serving as the first chair of the Board of Directors.
Jennifer Younger: Lightning rounds: Digital preservation: Aggregated, collaborative, Catholic
July 18, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Dr. Michael Nelson is a professor of computer science at Old Dominion University. Prior to joining ODU, he worked at NASA Langley Research Center from 1991 to 2002.
Michael Nelson: Presentation: Summarizing archival collections using storytelling techniques
July 24, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
This white paper summarizes the Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving online news event, with overviews of the panels and presentations, and projects produced by groups at the conference as well as student scholarship recipients.
White paper: Two days dedicated to Dodging the Memory Hole
July 26, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2017 Call for Contributors
The next Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Online News forum will be held Nov. 15-16 at the Internet Archive in San Francisco.
August 11, 2017 -
Dodging the Memory Hole 2016: Saving Online News
Self-proclaimed data nerd Hjalmar Gislason is the vice president of data for visual analytics software company Qlik.
Hjalmar Gislason: Keynote speaker: Digital salvage operations — what’s worth saving?
August 18, 2017 -
Gotta catch ’em all: Archiving digital content such as social media should include linked objects
In the digital media world, there’s no guarantee that material that appears one minute will be there the next.
August 22, 2017 -
Changing media landscape adds yet another challenge to archivists of born-digital news content
Not only are technological systems currently insufficient for the amount of information we intend to store online, but the debate over who powers our news and the platforms that disseminate them makes saving online news more important than ever.
November 17, 2017 -
Is universal access to all knowledge an attainable goal?
Imagine a world with unlimited access to any and all kinds of information. There’d be no barriers to learning. Books, music, video, software and other media would be freely available to everyone. Brewster Kahle dreams about creating such a world.
December 7, 2017 -
RJI Fellow wants to make media, tech companies more aware of need to preserve content
Nineteen of 21 news outlets weren’t doing anything to archive web content. A lack of awareness and action in this area has driven Neil Mara to leverage his industry experience and contacts to help find archiving solutions for media companies.
September 16, 2019 -
Saving history from disappearing
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) and University of Missouri Libraries received a $250,000 grant this fall from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help ensure the survival of today’s digital news record for future generations.
October 23, 2019 -
Neil Mara columns
After Trump released a partial transcript of the call with Ukraine, Washington Post readers were treated to an almost exact parallel from 45 years ago. “That time Nixon released doctored transcripts during Watergate.”
Print archives show past impeachments. Where will we go to find the history being made today?
November 18, 2019 -
Neil Mara columns
When Marianne Mather visited the archives in the Chicago Tribune, what she found inspired her to co-author a book, “He Had It Coming: Four Murderous Women and the Reporter Who Immortalized Their Stories”
He Had It Coming: How archives keep giving, almost a century later
April 2, 2020