{
  "id": "2002-november-december-another-member-of-the-family-moves-on",
  "slug": "2002-november-december-another-member-of-the-family-moves-on",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-another-member-of-the-family-moves-on.html",
  "year": 2002,
  "month": "November December",
  "monthNum": 11,
  "headline": "Another member of the family moves on",
  "kicker": "",
  "author_name": "David Herzog",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "IRE and NICAR",
  "summary": "Aron Pilhofer, former director of IRE's Campaign Finance Information Center, has joined the Center for Public Integrity and will continue contributing to journalism through regular features on open source software tools.",
  "keywords": [
    "campaign",
    "software",
    "databases"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Journalism & Newsroom",
    "Technology",
    "Government & Politics"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Python",
    "Linux",
    "MySQL",
    "TUTOS",
    "OpenOffice"
  ],
  "full_text": "As some of you know, Aron Pilhofer, who directed IRE's Campaign Finance Information Center, has taken a job as database editor with the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.\n\nFor more than a year, Aron had been busy with IRE and NICAR projects. He revamped the CFIC Web site and launched its two online databases where IRE members can search for federal political campaign contributions and simply click on the contributor's name to see whether the contributor received federal contracts.\n\nAron revived Tracker, the center's quarterly publication that covers campaign finance reporting, and trained journalists across the country in how to analyze campaign finance data for news reporting.\n\nAron served as NICAR's in-house open source software guru, promoting the virtues of free software tools with all kinds of strange names - Python, Mandrake, MySQL, TUTOS. When Aron spoke at the annual CAR conference in Philadelphia this year about \"World-Class CAR on 99 Cents a Day,\" he wasn't kidding.\n\nStarting with the next issue of Uplink, Aron will contribute a regular feature focusing on open source software that journalists can use for their work. For starters, he'll write about his experience with OpenOffice, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office that's been garnering some interest on the NICAR-L listserv.\n\nBest wishes in your return to the newsroom, Aron.\n\nContact David Herzog by e-mail at dherzog@nicar.org.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
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      "score": 0.28
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  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-another-member-of-the-family-moves-on.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-november-december-another-member-of-the-family-moves-on.json"
}