Philip McMahon

Philip is a Senior Software Developer at Guardian News & Media, working on the editorial tools team which manages the Guardian’s in-house content management system.

The internet has freed journalism from the limitations of column length, printing capabilities and distribution deadlines. But a lot of online news still comes in the form of the article: headline, image, body text. Philip will talk about the Guardian’s current efforts and future plans to break away from this. Recently they’ve introduced the idea of ‘content atoms’ which could be something simple like a ‘Brexit summary’ atom, which is an always up to date piece of content that can be embedded in multiple different content pieces, or exist on its own. Other examples are quizzes, explainer videos and timelines of a story. Keeping content up to date in multiple places presents some interesting technical challenges.