Just give us the data

What does a public service broadcaster do when it no longer leads in either the supply or the presentation of public information?

As a rookie journalist wanting routine data, I phoned a press office, it gave us the stuff, we printed it, highlighting what we thought interesting.

"Are you a member of the press?" I'd be asked, before being put through. The public wasn't allowed in.

Now the UK Government is launching Data.gov.uk (above), the Mayor of London is announcing a data store and Channel 4 has formed 4iP - the 4 Innovation for the Public fund - and is inviting bids for grants from people with good ideas for exploiting public information on digital platforms, including iPhone or Facebook.

In the next few months, postcode and Ordnance Survey data are expected to become freely available so that public data can be more easily and excitingly mapped by anyone who cares to try. The list of initiatives grows by the week.

As information became more freely available, journalists comforted themselves with the idea that a glut of data would still leave the public in need of a guide. The BBC and other reputable, established organisations would be those trusted guides.

But now, not only are others supplying data, they are also finding ways of presenting it - using graphics, maps and animation - on new platforms that can make old methods of highlighting what journalists think is important appear limited, dull, unenlightening and controlling. On top of that, there may be suspicions that the old conduits for data are biased in their selections.

The new lot take their credibility not from their own long established reputation - they have none - but by borrowing the authority of National Statistics, or the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, or any of the other numerous sources whose data they can simply lift and represent in new ways.

Patterns in public spending can be more easily identified by a good animated graphic from a charity that just wants to get the data out there because its whole purpose is free access to data, than by high-brow economic commentary.

We can potentially absorb, at a glance, far more data, identify patterns more quickly, and make our own judgments as citizens about even the biggest public arguments, on the basis of what one geek in a living room does with a CSV file from the National Statistics or UN development programme website.

Perhaps the biggest effect will be not on broadcasters or other media, but on the public, once used to thinking that data was served up by big media, now helped to see that it can be easily, colourfully obtained, with scope for interaction, at a high level of detail and relevance.

There is a phrase sometimes heard nowadays - data-driven journalism. Is it already out of date? My question is - I admit to mischievous provocation - if you have a data-driven public with endless goodies to choose from, will you need the journalist?

My own sampling of what's out there doesn't convince me that anyone is anywhere near exploiting the potential of the data that's now available. But I doubt it will be long before they do.