The following posts by Adrian Holovaty provide as good an introduction to the technological challenges facing journalists than any other. They also served as the inspiration for my new course Comuter Programming for the Humanities which I am teaching this fall (2007) at Georgetown University:

http://www.holovaty.com/blog/archive/2006/09/06/0307

http://www.holovaty.com/blog/archive/2006/10/02/2300