Data sets, social media, and the news

Malcolm Gladwell recently said that if he were trying to break into journalism today, he would stat by getting a master’s degree in statistics.  The Hardvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who revieces Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw” on this week’s cover, might second this advice.

~ the Editor’s note at the front of this week’s NYTimes book review

Just a quick thought: it’s really too bad that, when discussing the impact of the web on news media, the data available on the internet doesn’t receive the emphasis it deserves.

The efficiency of social media - the ability to connect directly with a large number of people essentially for free at any and all times of the day - is great; it provides a lot of the potential sizzle for the business of news.

But the ability to easily find, sort, display and narrate data is the steak under that sizzle.  Buzzwords like “content” and “portals” and “platforms” and “networks” and “ecosystems”, all that stuff, it boils down to the creation of one giant data set that can be easily accessed, organized and distributed.

Once twitter and facebook statuses are archived, you’re going to see an exponential increase in the amount of representative data available - data that could really inform the news.

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Update:  Actually, you know what?  Google should just go into the 12-25 DMAs and start news organizations - they’d make a killing.