The Modern Journalist

Tech Companies Develop APIs for Public Records

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For the past few years, I’ve been telling newspaper and media companies that if they didn’t get on the ball, technology companies were going to usurp much of what they consider their domain because modern technology companies are bogged down with the “history” that newspapers oftentimes cling.

In fact, lots of folks smarter than me have been saying the same — or similar — things. JD Lasica has an interview with a start-up company doing working to develop APIs for public records. The location of the interview: Cisco.

News organizations ought to get behind this effort by releasing their own open API to public records in their communities. Now, here’s the important twist: Instead of just making the data available internally, for its staff to analyze and reinterpret, news publications ought to bring readers and users into such efforts.

But there’s an equally compelling reason for newspapers to get into the API and data game. If they aren’t going to invest in technology, they need to invest in the technology development community and that means latching on to the open source world.

If Microsoft — which built a business on proprietary software — can bite the open-source bullet, newspapers can surely follow.

I’ve talked to several hundred media professionals within the last year — magazine publishers, newspaper editors, reporters, programmers, start ups — and the only consistent message I’ve given them (not because I’m scatterbrained, but because the talk topic has been different) is that they need to open up their code and then support open source development of new products.

My favorite idea: open up all the data with APIs, dip into the marketing budget (we’ll say $10,000 but the amount is not important) and start a community at SourceForge.net. Then contact every computer science department in the area — and every professional computer science organization you can find — and launch a contest.

Build the Best Application.

Every application has to be released into the open source community. Every application must work first with the sponsoring newspaper’s site. Every application must not violate state, federal and international law.

Winners would be judged on a weighted criteria: number of downloads, user ranking of service and a panel of local computer science professors who evaluate the code of the top 5 applications.

First prize: $5,000. Second prize: $3,000. Third prize: $2,000.

My guess is that — if you manage the community properly — you’d have some pretty wicked cool applications you never thought about. And if you’re really smart, you’d then form a development community through SourceForge — and maybe even have a regular competition to develop newspaper-specific applications while encouraging work on emerging models of distribution.

The goal is to attract readers. To lower the barrier to entry so they come and then come again. That means removing some of those old security mechanisms — those locks and keys — an realizing you can have a secure environment with open source development while engaging the readers in ways you could never imagine.