Five Years Running a News Site on JAMStack
Part I: History and Architecture
I started working as the Director of Technology at Spotlight PA the Tuesday after Memorial Day, 2019, over five years ago. There have been a lot of changes in technology, journalism, and the world since then, not least of which was the COVID-19 pandemic. I thought this anniversary would be a good opportunity to look back and take stock of what went well, what went poorly, what I think would have been the best choice I could have made at the time, and what choices I would make if I had it to do again now.
I’m planning to write this as a four part series with the first part focused on the broad strokes history of Spotlight PA’s technical architecture and later parts drilling down on specific practices, services, and technologies.
“Five Years Running a News Site on JAMStack” has also been accepted by SRCCON 2024 as a session. I don’t believe the session will be recorded, so if you read this and are interested in learning more, please come see me in Minneapolis this August. SRCCON has always been my favorite conference, and I’m looking forward to being back this year.