Transparency has never looked so good

Posted at 3:00 PM on June 15, 2011 by Michael Olson (4 Comments)
Filed under: Tech

The amount of attention the media has given the release of Sarah Palin's emails by far outweighs the significance of the emails themselves. The Daily Show take down is on point. But the ability to display copious amounts of information in elegant ways continues to show promise for the future of journalism. Case in point: The Sunlight Foundation's sarahsinbox.com.

Here's a good window into what the AP's Jonathan Stray did with the WikiLeaks data dump:

Investigating thousands (or millions) of documents by clustering from Jonathan Stray

(h/t Maria Popova)

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Comments (4)

As someone who makes their living in the IT sector I find it interesting that news organizations received this as boxes of paper. Couldn't they, shouldn't they, have been released in some type of electronic form? It's easy enough to convert the emails to simple text files with all the header information removed. (Although having that information could be enlightening.)

Instead they print the emails and release the paper. If the purpose of the release is to provide information then the best option would be to release them electronically and allow news agencies to print out the ones they want printed. (All if they decide that's what they want.) Instead what they've done is release the information in the single worst manner to have it be useful to people as boxes of paper.

If this was some sort of FIOA request you'd think an electronic version would be available.

Posted by JackU | June 15, 2011 3:44 PM

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I agree with Jack, but the visual of a person bringing out a couple of DVDs in hand does not carry the same effect with the news cameras as box after box of paper does.

Posted by John O. | June 15, 2011 6:55 PM

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Hey Jack,

Agreed. The paper is pointless. Some states open records acts allow paper or electronic versions of the information while others require it in electronic if that is the format it originates in. Alaska is flexible in the format.

Posted by Michael | June 16, 2011 6:33 AM

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The state of Alaska claims they don't have the technology to release the emails digitally while preserving redactions:

Posted by Luigi Montanez | June 16, 2011 9:49 AM

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