put simply is a lowcost communications network everything else like the web builds on top of that and having so much information online can be a gold mine for reporting in my case i report on technology and economics these dayssilicon valley is a caldron of innovation but all the big issues surrounding technologys impact on the world like automation economic opportunity and income disparity are playing out outside the tech hubs across the 20 trillion american economy tons of research is being done on those subjects and its all online working papers from the national bureau of economic research and the social science research network data from the bureau of labor statistics and scientific studieswhat it means is you can test your assumptions for any trend or explanatory story is the lively anecdote you just came across an outlier or representative of a broader phenomenon early in reporting a subject you can get an answer to the question what story do the numbers tell you that is a powerful tool that applies to most fields today including journalismimagecreditidris solomon for the new york timesthe other similar change is in the ease speed and cost of onetoone communication which is the most valuable in one week alone this month i never thought twice about talking to people in germany israel and france by phone or skype the faster easier inexpensive communication means you can talk to far more people wherever they are on any given storyto explain the difference when i was a foreign correspondent in japan nearly all communication with the new york office was messages typed on paper and sent by cable in nearly three years i spoke by phone to the editor who was my boss only twice and the second time was to be told to move to manila to cover the waning days of the ferdinand marcos regimeby contrast my 22yearold daughter has just finished a ninemonth fellowship in russia in nizhny novgorod look it up i talked to her most every day with video sometimes for up to an hour on weekends all it took was a smartphone facebook messenger and a decent wifi connectionoutside of work what tech products are you currently obsessed withi live in an apartment with more than 4000 books and yet ive also become a huge kindle fan its just so convenient a library in a lightweight tablet for big books like william taubmans biography of mikhail gorbachev published last year ill sometimes buy both the hardcover and the digital versions each has its advantagesim also a rapt beneficiary of the renaissance in podcasting a classic example of technology innovation and investment coming together to eventually get a new medium right i listen to the daily from the times in the evening after a day in front of a screen if you havent listened to the caliphate series do yourself a favor admittedly both are plugs for the times but both are terrific audio programsi like others too high