Data Mining Rescues Investigative Journalism

John Mecklin sends in word of initiatives through which the digital revolution that has been undermining in-depth reportage may be ready to give something back, through a new academic and professional discipline known as "computational journalism." "James Hamilton, director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy at Duke University, is in the process of filling an endowed chair with a professor who will develop sophisticated computing tools that enhance the capabilities — and, perhaps more important in this economic climate, the efficiency — of journalists and other citizens who are trying to hold public officials and institutions accountable. The goal: Computer algorithms that can sort through the huge amounts of databased information available on the Internet, providing public-interest reporters with sets of potential story leads they otherwise might never have found. Or, in short, data mining in the public interest."

Comments

Oh bull

[Groo Wanderer]

As someone who does investigative journalism for a living, data mining won't get you squat. Having done it for a living for 5+ years, and being very familiar with data mining, the two so rarely cross paths that it rounds to zero.

Why? Because if it is in minable form, it doesn't take any digging to find. If you can run a google search and get even a tidbit about what you need, you don't need investigative journalism.

Of the stories I have gotten, little ones like the P4 going 64 bits, it never reaching 4GHz, Dell exploding laptops (an assist on that one), and more recently the Nvidia bump cracking problem(s), none of that would have been possible through data mining.

If it is out there, it doesn't need an investigative journalist. If it isn't, than data mining won't help. The end.

                -Charlie