Today, I started my Knight/Mozilla OpenNews Fellowship at PBS Frontline! So I'll be here in Boston, MA for the next ten months. (sidenote: Also, looking forward to schmoozing at the MIT Media Lab, also here in Boston.)

Anyway, pretty dang excited to be here! The first thing you see walking into Frontline's office – once you find your way through the labyrinthine WGBH building – are the Emmys, Emmys everywhere. Emmys filling up an entire shelf. Emmys that couldn't even fit on the shelf. Never seen an Emmy used as a paperweight before.

I won't be working (directly) on their TV documentary stuff, but I'll be part of their experimental digital team – making tools, interactives, simulations, and other shtuff. At their 10 AM daily meeting, I introduced myself, the new kid.

Because I overdo things, I did a Show & Tell.

I showed off a couple simulations I've made in the past, on social systems (Parable of the Polygons) and natural systems (Sim The World In Emoji), as well as a prototype sim on the US incarceration system. That's the core theme running throughout my presentation: understanding systems.

I ended with my favorite quote from my now-favorite film, Spotlight. At one point, Marty Baron, the editor of the Globe, sits his team down as says this:

“We need to focus on the institutions, not the individuals. Practice, and policy. We're going after the system.”

And soon, I hope to go after many, many systems.

P.S: Also, the OpenNews Fellowship wants my blog posts on their site, but they prolly don't want my sleep-deprived bird-poetry, so I'm creating a new tag for this called “Journo Stuff”.