Computational Journalism

Researchers and journalists are exploring new methods, sources, and ways of linking communities to the information they need to govern themselves. A new field is emerging to promote the process: computational journalism. A half-century ago, photocopying machines quietly revolutionized accountability journalism. The ability to copy documents worked in tandem with new freedom-of-information laws to make possible more sophisticated investigations. For computationalists and journalists to work together to create a new generation of reporting methods, each needs an understanding of how the other views data. On the flip side, investigative reporters have gigabytes of data on their hard drives and reams of documents in their file cabinets and are often willing to share them with researchers after a story is published. They are not bound by rules regarding human-subject testing or the research standards of peer-reviewed journals.