Sarah’s Law and the ethics of database journalism

Tuesday, 2 January 2007, 15:24

Thanks to the wide availability of public records in digital form in the United States, some journalists there have long used “database journalism” or “computer-assisted reporting” (CAR) to produce sophisticated stories based on snippets of information drawn from public databases.

Unfortunatly, this type of investigative journalism that has been slow to catch on in Britain, despite the greater availably of public data through the Freedom of Information Act.

One type of CAR story that has become common in the United States — the surveillance of sex offenders listed on public registers introduced since the mid-1990s under “Megan’s Law” legislation.

Several local papers and television stations across the United States have used the GIS mapping software Arcview to uncover sex offenders who were living closer to schools than local law allows. Other reporters have compared registers with databases of public employees to uncover sex offenders working in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes.

If an equivalent “Sarah’s Law” were introduced in Britain, stories similar to these might one day also become possible in the UK.

But writing in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Lars-Marten Nagel recently examined the ethical implications of these stories. Do such stories effectively deputise journalists into law enforcement?

No, says the journalists: these are public interest stories that aim to uncover incompetence in law enforcement or the absurdities of some of the laws’ provisions.

But Nagel also quotes one journalist who worries that his stories might drive sex offenders underground.

A spokeswoman from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, meanwhile, warns that media accounts often provide a false image of sex offenders as and risks provoking vigilantism against them.

The protests reported in Britain in 2000 after the News of the World started “naming and shaming” alleged paedophiles are an example of how such stories can have undesirable consequences, she said.

Entry Filed under: Computer Assisted Reporting, Ethics, Journalism, Miscellanea, News of the World

7 Comments Add some more of your own

1. /public relations /media &hellip | 27 February 2007 at 1337

PR Newswire and Technorati partnershipHow can blogs keep their editorial integrity while still making money? Journalists are PR schmucks, bloggers cut the hypeA wiki for leaking secretsPromoting computer-assisted reporting in BritainSarah?s Law and the ethics of database journalism
2. Journalism.co.uk :: Home&hellip | 5 January 2007 at 1855

2007: Web 2.0 Companies I Couldnt Live Without” Democrats to push net neutrality bill in US UGC good for old media – report claims World’s oldest newspaper now online only Washington Post aims for closer print and web ties Ethics of database journalism Five tests to avoid blog failure
3. Danny Sanchez | 2 January 2007 at 2354

Anyone interested in computer-assisted reporting should definitely get on the NICAR listserv at http://www.ire.org/membership/listserv.html

Some of the best CAR people in the States are on it offering help with problems; it’s truly a fabulous resource.
4. Martin Stabe » Prom&hellip | 3 January 2007 at 1243

[...] Commenting on my post about computer-assisted reporting yesterday, Danny Sanchez suggests that anyone interested in learning more about CAR should join the listserve run by the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting in the United States. [...]
5. Strive Notes » Janu&hellip | 5 January 2007 at 1414

[...] 3. Martin Stabe discusses the pros and cons of ‘database journalism’, which he thinks is underused in the UK compared to the US. A thoughtful discussion. [...]
6. New PR&hellip | 7 January 2007 at 1102

Sarah’s Law and the ethics of database journalism…

Martin Stabe discusses the pros and cons of ‘database journalism’, which he thinks is underused in the UK compared to the US. A thoughtful discussion….
7. Database journalism&hellip | 15 April 2007 at 0538

[...] Martin Stabe points to a German article (that I can’t read) about the ethics of database journalism. The question is whether journalists who expose convicted sexual criminals living too close to children or schools are doing the work of police. (Here’s a primitive translation of the German article) Of course, unearthing bits of data from enormous databases is just early step in this type of reporting. This field promises richer results as journalists adapt sophisticated mathematical tools to analyze data–and to reach new conclusions about the big topics in our lives, including the spread of wealth, disease and terrorism. [...]

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