Finding stories in data. The pursuit of facts in plain sight.
Today’s post will is all about timelines which really don’t feature in the news as much as they should. They can say lot because they contain a lot yet require little effort using today’s featured freeware. Text timelines need to be a thing of the past. there’s no real sense of space and time and … Continue Reading →
Who? Hacks/Hackers London meetup What? Pub social and networking event for those who are working to help people make sense of their world. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter and visualize information, and for journalists who use technology to find and tell stories. In the age of information overload, all their work has become … Continue Reading →
Here is a Wordle of Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks at press conference following his visit to the flood-affected zones in Pakistan Stay tuned for more UN speeches, hopefully with timeline. The text of the speech has been cleaned with words like “of”, “and”, “the”, etc removed. The easiest way I’ve found is to copy the … Continue Reading →
Who? Heather Brooke award winning freedom of information campaigner and author What? Pub social and talk When? Monday, September 13 at 7:00PM Where? The Monk Exchange Strutton Ground London SW1H 0HW Why? To dig for a story you can go to a stae own mine (open data) where anyone can dig and someone else gets … Continue Reading →
Thanks to a tip from Paul Bradshaw I have compiled a Google Reader bundle. It’s updates from my blogroll and more. It’s public so please feel free to subscribe. I will be updating it with all the people and institutions I find who work with data. This reminded me that there’s more to social media … Continue Reading →
As you must have read, scorching weather has ignited peat fires across 35 regions in Russia. At its height last week, smog produced from the raging fires meant visibilty in Moscow was just 300 metres. The fire emergency status has been cancelled in three regions but the scale of the disaster can be guaged somewhat from this Goolge Earth … Continue Reading →
Numerical analysis sounds boring to most and way too complicated to nearly all news organizations. But the advent of multimedia and interactives means that facts and figures can and should be made accessible and exciting. Here is a TED talk using simple Power Point. The topic and research are so affective that I am just gripped … Continue Reading →
Numerical information is becoming more and more important in news reporting. This is not only due to interactive web abilities (I’ll write another post on this) but because big news is news of scale. For instance, the floods in Pakistan are now being put into context with figures. The number of people suffering from the … Continue Reading →
For spinning data, ‘Lifestyle’ articles are the worst. I was sorry to see such an article in The Guardian today (09/08/10). The headline: “British breast cancer rates ‘four times higher than eastern Africa’, says report”. The subheading: “World Cancer Research Fund survey cites lifestyle as reason for difference”. This article is taken straight from a … Continue Reading →
Open data, by its nature, should be for everyone. That’s why many good people such as Chris Taggart, Will Perrin and The Open Knowledge Foundation are trying to get data to the people who care. And who will care enough to look into it that bit further. Who will find the people, ask the questions … Continue Reading →