WaPo: We're Losing the Brand Wars to Transparency
BY Nancy Scola | Monday, March 15 2010
The Washington Post's ombudsperson Andrew Alexander has an apology to make. He's super sorry that the Post doesn't do a better job exposing its readers to government data:
[T]he era when paper records were kept in dusty file rooms is fading. Today, "freedom of information" has been expanded to encompass the right to instantly tap vast quantities of public information in electronic form. The contents of these databases, from restaurant health inspection reports to toxic waste citations, help citizens improve their communities and their lives.
The Post has a journalistic obligation and a business imperative to provide easy online access to the data through its Web site. But it's fallen far behind at a time when its readers have a growing number of alternatives.
It's intriguing that some people within the Washington Post enterprise are interpreting the organization's mission these days as being a portal onto minimally-processed government data, and doing it with a thinly-veiled reference to the good ol' days of Watergate. That's reinterpreting "newspaper" to be a news organization, yes. But it's also rethinking "news organization" to include acting as a go-between between the stuff that government produces and the stuff that citizens might like to know about. But hey, as Alexander points out, today kicks off Sunshine Week across the country. No time like the present to start getting better at serving up to readers the source materials of government.
If not for the good of the country, then for the good, says Alexander, of the Post:
The Post should help its readers by becoming a robust online gateway to digitized information. If not, readers' loyalties will shift to another brand.