If you've taken the Gazette for a while you'll know we've been following the rise and rise of open data journalism startup Urbs Media. Well, they've been in the news this week as one of those funded by the next round of the Google DNI fund. Working in partnership with the Press Association, they've secured 700K for the RADAR project. RADAR (Reporters And Data And Robots ) will build a new service which will create up to 30,000 localised stories each month from open data sets. From an experiment in the viability of using data from the London Data store for storytelling to a 700K robot journalism project. Not a bad job at all.
The announcement has got quite a bit of coverage - they wasted no time in getting the news out there. One worth a look is from Trinity Mirror's David Higgerson who ponders Data journalism, robots … and predictions on where we go from here
In last weeks Gazette I noted a change in the rules on who can inspect council accounts. So it was really interesting to see The Peoples Audit pop up in my feed. They aim to help the public (and councils) get their heads around the audit changes and they've got a report on Lambeth's accounts that shows just how powerful this access could prove be.
In a kind of related way, the Guardian's reporting that Judge's handwritten notes released under UK data laws for first time, makes you think about the extent to which transparency and accountability are changing.
which brings me to the first of a couple of interesting open data related posts to take a look at. Mor Rubinstein's asks if open data is "a means to an end, not the end itself” what is the end we’re actually looking for? In a similar vein Dr. Audrey Lobo-Pulo, a Senior Adviser in the Australian Public Service, starts a series of posts looking at the Promises, the disillusion and the panacea of open data. Taking another metaphor common in the open data world Andy Kriebel from The Data School ponders The Great Big Data Divide – If data is the new oil, then we need more oil well drillers. With an eye on the UK, Owen Boswarva looks at the Open Data Index and asks where there may be room for improvement.
A few really interesting conferences to look back on this week. The Local Government Association conference. The second was the first (I hope of many) Data Journalism conference. The proceedings have been already been published but expect more write ups over the next few weeks. The London Community Media Summit was also an interesting and timely look at community and hyperlocal media. Monocle have a nice audio roundup of views from editors at the summit.
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