Data delivery

I recently commented on a Poynter posting by Ken Sands about newspapers' data collections and the new jobs being created to organize them.

Since then, Northwestern's Rich Gordon has written an essay for the Readership Institute, Data as journalism, journalism as data. Gordon, a pioneer in thinking about how newspapers should be using data, has an interesting look back at how this trend has evolved and who's working and thinking on it, including Gannett and its 'information center' concept.

He focuses on the Indianapolis Star and its Data Center, created by talented staff including Michael Jesse, long a new media star in the news library world.

Fascinating stuff. Says Gordon:

While changes in audience behavior and the business of media are creating tough times for news organizations these days, online databases offer new ways of engaging audiences and delivering quality journalism that people need and value.

He points to a story in Newspaper Next, with links to and descriptions of lots of newspaper data projects. I started keeping track of newspaper database collections when I heard of them, but hadn't made a dedicated effort to finding all of them. MaryJo at Pioneer Planet sent me several after my recent posting; I've updated the list here. Now I need to go thru the Newspaper Next list and see which others I've missed.