The “news” is only a tiny distillation of the tide of information that washes daily into our newsrooms. The stacks and gigabytes of statistics and documents, often acquired after months or years of effort, sit in filing cabinets and hard drives once we’re done analyzing them.

That’s why today’s debut of startribune.com’s data destination, called infoCenter, is an exciting thing for Whistleblower, as nerdy as that sounds. One of the goals of this blog is to let people know about public records, a raw material for the news, but more importantly, one of the two pillars of an accountable government. infoCenter, edited by my colleagues John Stefany and Glenn Howatt, represents the Star Tribune’s most ambitious data project.

So what can you learn from infoCenter? I discovered the following facts about my neighborhood:

The nearest farmer’s market: Kingfield Farmer’s Market
How much the house across the street sold for in 2006: $286,500
How much the guy who runs my electric company was paid in 2007: $6.9 million
How much the guy who runs my water system was paid in 2007: $108,897
The two biggest John McCain contributors in my zip code: Ronald Eibensteiner (self employed) and Robert Estes (attorney), each of whom gave $2,300 in 2007
The closest homicide to my house so far in 2008: Antwain D’Angelo Turner, 23, found dead outside his Park Avenue home
The nearest functionally obsolete bridge: the 43-year-old 36th Street bridge over Interstate 35W
Who’s playing at the Lake Harriet bandshell tonight: the Inver Hills Community Band

Let us know about what you’d like to see on infoCenter, and how you’re using it. If you think we shouldn’t be making some of this information available, or you have other concerns about infoCenter, you can also contact managing editor/digital Will Tacy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Public records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.