Many journalists got into reporting to follow the money. The Education Writers Association is taking on the colossal task of tracking federal stimulus funds funneling to school districts around the country online at Edmoney.org.
The site launched in January with a database that went live today, and, eventually wants to combine data with information shared by local journalists as well as others -- community members, think tanks, and more -- to give the numbers context and provide information about what is really happening to money gong to schools from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Matt Waite of Hot Type Consulting and Nirvi Shah of the Miami Herald, both working on the site funded with a grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, updated journalists on the project on the opening day of the EWA 2010 Conference.
"We talked about it being a multi-layered story. It's more than data," explained Waite. "Data can't tell you where money was misspent on something. That is why God made journalists."
Waite is a journalist and author turned Web developer, and is perhaps best known for the Politifact.com site and its Truth-o-Meter. Other part-time staffers are spending time now collecting data from the federal government, and states. Said Waite, "Between links what other journalists are doing, getting data from the federal and state governments, and through our own journalism we thought we could paint a pretty good picture."
Waite and Shah encouraged journalists and others to contribute links to stories and share other information to feed the Edmoney engine.
I'd love to see parents and teachers and others tell us what (school districts) spent (the money) on," Waite said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment