What is the purpose of crime reporting?
I asked on Twitter how journalists cover crime, and how it should change as police blotters go online. The resulting conversation brought out all sorts of aspects of the relationship between police, reporters, and the public.
- Several of the first responses pointed out that police department data is often horribly hard to find and use.
@jonathanstray @mattwynn PD sites may have the data, but more often than not the interface is horrendous and unintelligible.
.@hbillings @jonathanstray @mattwynn When @mattwaite and I were planning MugShots, we based the argument on available data =/= useable data.- A number of folks also highlighted the importance of "trend" stories, as opposed to individual reports.
- .@hbillings @jonathanstray @mattwynn Crime data is about trend and aggregation. No PD offers that.
@jonathanstray @jeremybowers @hbillings @mattwynn whatever you do, please try to replace the "year in murder" story w/ good trend reporting.
@jonathanstray @knowtheory see: most coverage of the bloody year Chicago's had. All dots, no lines.
@jonathanstray Not just crime either. Many stories in politics, environment etc. make no sense except in aggregate.- Which I agree with wholeheartedly, but much crime reporting is about single events.
@jeremybowers @hbillings @mattwynn Ok, but reporters still produce a ton of single-event crime spot stories e.g. washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-sc…- .@jonathanstray @hbillings @mattwynn Yeah. This washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-sc… should be generated from fielded data. No question.
- Jeremy is referring to Narrative Sciences, a company that produces sports stories (and other types) from data. The LA Times also has an automated alert system. Clearly, technology can help here.
@mattwaite @hbillings @jeremybowers @mattwynn @jonathanstray I have seen Ben's robot scoop both LAPD and my neighbors on car theft reports.- (Ben's robot is the LA Times automated system, written by Ben Welsh)
- .@thejefflarson @mattwynn @jonathanstray I agree! I want to stop wasting resources on form stories and build tools instead.
- .@derekwillis @jonathanstray @hbillings @mattwynn Easier to do trend reporting if you have a good tool.
- @jeremybowers @jonathanstray @hbillings @mattwynn stop typing incident reports into Word docs/CMS would be a good start.
- @jeremybowers @mattwynn @jonathanstray Even if that's the case, you are relying on orgs that have a keen interest in suppressing some data.
- Of course, machine generated stories are not necessarily the most interesting... but it's interesting if it's your neighborhood!
- .@thejefflarson @mattwynn @jonathanstray Generate what can be generated. Then report everything else.
