Data as journalism, journalism as data

Cory Bergman November 15th, 2007

Northwestern’s Rich Gordon takes an in-depth look at IndyStar.com’s Data Center site, and it’s a must read for online newsies. Explains Gordon, “Thanks to the Star, online users can see police and fire emergency calls in real time, look up their property tax assessments, review school test scores and suspensions, check out CEO salaries, look up crime statistics in their neighborhood, and — proving that databases can be used for much more than hard news — find out how Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning performs in different game situations. Between March and October, the Star’s online databases generated 7.2 million page views - roughly 3 percent of the paper’s online traffic.” Very cool stuff, and a lot of lessons to be learned for news sites everywhere.