Meet the California Civic Data Coalition's new lead developer
His name is James Gordon
James Gordon started work today as the lead developer for the California Civic Data Coalition.
Gordon, a journalist and computer programmer, is taking charge of the coalition’s open-source effort to master CAL-ACCESS, the jumbled, dirty and difficult government database that tracks campaign finance and lobbying activity in California politics.
Gordon will be based in Columbia, Mo., in the offices of Investigative Reporters and Editors. He will report to the coalition’s leadership team. All of his work will be freely available on GitHub.
While pursuing his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism, Gordon was a research assistant in the database library of at IRE’s National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
Gordon has also worked stints at KBIA-FM, mid-Missouri’s NPR member station, and on the projects team of The Dallas Morning News.
Previously he was a product manager for VAN, a voter contact and activist organizing application used by campaigns across the U.S., Canada and other countries.
You can email Gordon at [email protected]. On Twitter he is @je_gordon. On GitHub he is gordonje.
On weekdays Gordon and the rest of the coalition’s leadership team can be found in the #california-civic-data channel of the News Nerdery Slack account and the public #californiacivicdata channel on freenode IRC.
His work is paid for by philanthropic funding from the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation. Funds were awarded last year after the coalition was named a winner of the Knight News Challenge. IRE is acting as the coalition’s fiscal agent.