Mashup Web sites like Everyblock and Politifact tell informative stories. They are like search engine meets news feed meets Wikipedia, but more fun to read.
Each site has a particular theme: crime rate, restaurant reviews, geographical histories. All you have to do is type a location and the site provides all the information, mashed together, so you don’t have to scour the Web to find it.
With This We Know, anyone can look up population demographic statistics, information on pollutants in the air, the number of factories and the number of unemployed for any area in the United States.
According the to the site, “36 Bills have been introduced about [Chicago] by 16 Members of Congress since 1993.”
The tweet-style blurbs even link off for more in-depth information. I can learn about the bills and the members who introduced them.
The site also tells me that, “45% of people relocated in the past 15 years.” Unfortunately, the site can only tell me the numbers.
What it can’t tell me is who left and why they left. This they don't know.
Despite some minor flaws, mashups can be a useful tool for journalists. The access to information means quick fact-checking capabilities.
Anyone can use these sites without the burden of finding questionable information. Much like encyclopedias, you can pick one out based on its specialty and find everything you wanted to know on that topic, without worrying about verifying the information.
It’s been done already for you because most of the sites are run by reliable organizations.
This We Know and govpulse, a journal for the federal government, are run by the U.S. government. Everyblock is run by a team of journalists and web developers. The site is owned by msnbc.
Since the stories told on mashups are not reported by journalists, they provide a new way of storytelling. The straight-to-the-facts style of information is without the fluff of opinion or bias.
I might not find why 45% of Chicagoans have relocated in the past 15 years, but I am free from the hearstring-pulling stories that may have happened as a result, the interviews and the conflict.
Mashup sites are pure uninhibited information. The can be accessed anytime day or night, not just when a journalist finds the information relevent to an upcoming story.
With laptops and smart phones everywhere these days, information and news are even bigger than journalists, reporting, newspapers, magazines and broadcasts. Mashups truly put information in the hands of the people.
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