[open-government] [ckan-discuss] Questions for journalists about what datasets are useful for them?

[Armand Brahaj]

Providing some information on this topic: 
We are running a project on Open Data Albania (open.data.al) and we found
out that journalists are interested only in information that are visually
represented (any graph will do). They do not care how much data you store
in your repository, if the data is in RDF tripples or plain excels. 

If they see a graph describing any-thing which can make news, they will
use it. For this reason we launched a beta-website with articles containing
graphics and some description of them (+link to excels), and we had quite
an impact in the Media in the region. We published smth like 40
graph+descriptions and there have been more than 40 articles in the press
and TV coverages reports. 

When dealing with journalists, I think you should consider more the last
question in your questioner: "What kind of tools would you like to help you
work with the datasets". 

Rgds,
Armand



On Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:12:08 +0000, Christopher Gutteridge
<cjg at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> Sorry, that sounds more sulky than I intended, I mean that I'm 
> interested in how to get people interested in what for most people can 
> be a bit of a technical and inaccessible subject, even though it's going

> to make Good Stuff happen.
> 
> Christopher Gutteridge wrote:
>> What kind of data release is newsworthy?
>>
>> I'm a bit miffed that the University of Southampton open data service 
>> didn't get more wide coverage. I don't know if it's something we 
>> should make more of an effort to get stories about or if it's just not 
>> very interesting.
>>
>> Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>> A friend of mine is doing a survey on the data needs and data related
>>> training needs of journalists and has asked if I have any suggestions
>>> for questions that I'd like answers to, that could be included in the
>>> survey. I'm thinking of proposing 2-3 questions, along the lines of:
>>>
>>>   * What kinds of public datasets would be useful to you as a
>>> journalist? (Please be as specific as possible)
>>>   * What kinds of questions do you want to use these datasets to
>>> answer? What kinds of issues do you want to explore? (Please be as
>>> specific as possible)
>>>   * What kinds of tools would you like to help you work with these 
>>> datasets?
>>>
>>> Anyone think of any other questions? Or improvements/amendments to the
>>> questions above? Suggestions for rewording?
>>>
>>> Answers on a postcard. ;-)
>>>
>>> J.
>>>
>>>   
>>
> 
> -- 
> Christopher Gutteridge -- http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1248
> 
> You should read the ECS Web Team blog:
> http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/
> 
> 
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