What Aaron doesn't give due attention to here is that improving existing government transparency is part of a larger information ecosystem. Digitizing previously paper-bound and siloed databases makes possible a new kind of "connect-the-dots" work that used to take investigative journalists months to do--or they simply didn't even try. His own project, Watchdog.net, has pioneered a new way of finding links, or "handshakes" as he called it, between campaign contributors and congressional earmarks, and the demographic data he's cataloged is going to help power new tools for investigative types to answer such questions as "How many members of Congress who represent districts where X percent of their households have experienced a foreclosure last year voted for the banking bailout?"
We're just at the beginning of a new wave of data- and citizen-empowered watchdogging of government, and it would be a huge mistake to discount how valuable these government transparency projects are in opening up the process in fundamentally new ways. Yes, it's true that government still wants to hide its dirt and the data it discloses is often only part of the picture. But the more we open access to the existing data and involve people in connecting the dots, the greater the appetite and demand for even more transparency, of the sort even Aaron might find useful.
Indeed, and there are real examples of local reporters uncovering corrupt congressman based on data in these public records. This is a lot harder if they have to travel to DC and sit in a basement reading room to pore over paper ledgers.
Where 'harder' is 'more expensive' and we know that the present newspaper model doesn't look like it can support expensive endeavors. Investigative journalism in the info age is only possible if those practicing it have info age tools.
Well, yes, but "harder" as in "more difficult" too. It's basically impossible to do anything useful with data stored in a paper ledger that's only available in a basement reading room a few hours a day and copies cost $0.15 a page.
This assumes that the public databases actually contain any information that will allow you to connect the dots. Aaron's claim seems to be that they mostly contain fluff that has nothing to do with the actual functioning of the government. That's why you have to investigate and uncover rather than simply analyze to get to the truth.
Yes. Yhe definition of the word "news" has been expanded to include anything that seems new. The other way of looking at it is to limit it to "things someone doesn't want you to announce." The argument in this article is that these databases are full only of data that people want you to announce. So how useful can it really be?
> We're just at the beginning of a new wave of data- and citizen-empowered watchdogging of government
Back in the mid 90s, a company called Hamilton Securities created an online tool for analyzing flows of government money at the local level. It didn't work out so well for them:
We're just at the beginning of a new wave of data- and citizen-empowered watchdogging of government, and it would be a huge mistake to discount how valuable these government transparency projects are in opening up the process in fundamentally new ways. Yes, it's true that government still wants to hide its dirt and the data it discloses is often only part of the picture. But the more we open access to the existing data and involve people in connecting the dots, the greater the appetite and demand for even more transparency, of the sort even Aaron might find useful.
(My collegue Micah Sifry wrote this with me)