Lessig’s Change Congress, A Road Map for Newspapers
March 20th, 2008 | by Brad King |
Larry Lessig, part of my people you should know series, decided not to run for Congress. Instead, he decided to start an organization meant to lobby Congress on behalf of the people.
There are many reasons to love Larry. This is one.
For our purposes, though, it illustrates a larger point about the news business. I’ve recounted by anger with the editorial writers whom I’m met at the Kettering Foundation’s Symposium on Media and Democracy. They claimed that their writing was the instrument of change, although they had nothing to back up their thoughts.
Lessig’s group — and other groups such as Follow the Money — precisely because newspapers haven’t grasped the fact that by tapping into the already-gathered storehouses of data, they can provide an ongoing service to their communities. Imagine if there was a list of money taken by candidates on the news website, with an API that allowed people to deliver that information in news ways. Attach that to Thomas, for instance, and then track the pork projects in your area. Keep a running tally of the money we are spending. Keep a running tally of pork projects.
These are not revolutionary ideas. Newspapers want to go Hyper-Local (which sounds like a spazzy kid to me)? Fine. Then do it with some flair and Web 2.0 attitude. Don’t give me silly maps that track your stories. Give me data and information that impacts my life.
