Why Good Data Will Always Matter (An Intro)

What would you prefer: a series of unsupported opinions or a series of statements supported by data that has been vetted and confirmed? The answer is obvious; folks want viable information not pomp and rhetoric, spin and unsubstantiated bluster. This is why I am perplexed every time I encounter distorted facts and half-baked opinions in articles and radio and video broadcasts throughout the U.S. media. But shoddy and sometimes downright corrupt journalism is not a new U.S. phenomena. It’s been a reality since our nation’s conception just like every other nation now and in the past.

Getting accurate information to the U.S. population has always required more than traditional media channels. Even before the American Revolution pamphleteers like Thomas Pain supplemented the national dialogue in ways that traditional media never could.  Pain's “Common Sense” armed countless Americans with sufficient information and values to support revolution and independence from English rule.

At first, pamphleteering may seem antiquated when placed in a 21^st century digital context; but then consider modern, civically engaged bloggers, and ask yourself how different their intentions are from their pamphleteer predecessors. Consider Micah Marshall, who writes the Talking Points Memo, a blog that led the way in reporting on the Valerie Plame scandal. Consider how many professional journalists now rely on the blogosphere for leads. In Pain’s day as in Marshall’s day, it is vital that the U.S. population receives information from voices outside conventional media.

In forthcoming blog posts, I will examine ways that civically engaged citizens and members of the media can leverage Internet technologies to function as agents of social change in contemporary society -- it's a nascent digital humanities revolution, thousands of years in the making.

This is a dialogue I welcome.

~ Ty Reeb