Tomorrow I’m chairing a discussion panel on the Future of Journalism at the first London Linked Data Meetup. On the panel are:
- Martin Belam (Information Architect, The Guardian; blogger, Currybet)
- John O’Donovan (Chief Architect, BBC News Online)
- Dan Brickley (Friend of a Friend project; VU University, Amsterdam; SpyPixel Ltd; ex-W3C)
- Leigh Dodds (Talis)
What questions would you like me to ask them about data and the future of journalism?
Online Journalism Blog 
From @jbante: “Ask how journalism and data can adapt to each others’ standards of fact-checking. Please.”
Ask what’s the best way to press Government/institutions/organisations/companies to release data in useful formats.
Ask if they would approve a budget to develop projects based on data, the skills (staff) needed, the added value of the graphics and design departments (data communication) and the relationships between journalists, designers and programmers that leads to the development of strong teams…
-How will Linked Data work once pay walls go up around news sites?
-Can Linked Data help commercial news publishers “compete” with taxpayer funded BBC content?
-Once data behind a story are exposed alongside the copy, will editors realise they need to edit the data as well as the copy to follow their editorial policy?
I don’t mean to ask this of the panel, but rather of Devere: What you do mean editors need to edit the data to follow their editorial policy? Editors should be futzing with data even less than they futz with photos, which is to say, not at all.
Thanks for those – managed to pose most of those questions to the panel – see the write up from last night.
In response to JEREMY, what I meant was that sometimes the data as well as facts get in the way of a good story. Just as some editors remove textual facts from copy if they don’t support the story line, they may also be tempted to restrict the structured data exposed for public scrutiny for the same reason. I’m not implying that they would change the data facts, but just omit certain elements or time periods etc. Particularly relevant for statistical data.
PS wish this site didn’t underline my English spelling because it isn’t in the American dictionary. Or am I being unfair to expect more of a Journalism site?
I’m not sure it’s this site – may be your browser – when I type ‘visualise’ or ‘colour’ in the comments box it doesn’t underline it.
Devere, “omit certain data”? That would be analogous to cropping the faces of unimportant people out of a photo. Advancing the story is beside the point. Data don’t tell a story; data present a picture.