Creation and curation: Building newsroom tools at Dow Jones

This article was migrated from an old version of our website in 2025. As a result, it might have some low-quality images or non-functioning links - if there's any issues you'd like to see fixed, get in touch with us at info@journalism.co.uk.

Erin Sparling , head of newsroom development at Dow Jones, discussed his team's recent experiences with building tools for the "creation, curation and syndication" of stories on mobile devices, speaking at yesterday's Hacks/Hackers event in London.

He explained how the editorial and design workflows influence the tools they have built for different outlets, including The Wall Street Journal.

Sparling also discussed the design process of content curation for digital products, covering subjects such as how to manipulate the visual aspect of stories on the web and how to create collections of content for multiple apps.

There used to be something here that couldn't be migrated - please contact us at info@journalism.co.uk if you'd like to see this updated!

"When we launched the iPad app in 2010, we built a custom layout framework. It was specifically designed to let us express meaningful layout changes on a daily or hourly basis," he said.

"The framework borrowed HTML elements and let us build applications that are totally distinct from one another. We then built tools on top of that to allow editors to be able to make changes to these templates."

• Elliot Bentley, graphics editor at The Wall Street Journal, will be speaking on a panel about building in-house tools for the newsroom at our upcoming [news:rewired](https://www.newsrewired.com/) conference on December 1, looking at the resources needed, the collaborative approach between developers and journalists and the open-source movement. Find out more [here](https://www.newsrewired.com/agenda-7/).