The past week or two has brought some press stories about games being designed/developed as tools for learning, as in "productive learning," not learning how to inflict terror or be a better car-jacker.  We recently ran across the site below, "Social Impact Games."  It's well worth a visit, as are the others.

We think these have great potential for journalism as tools to help readers/viewers learn how government, eduction, schools, the legal system and nature work. 

Good links to simulation games:

*) Social Impact Games.  This one is a very rich jump site: http://www.socialimpactgames.com or http://tinyurl.com/ygpa75

*) http://www.playmassbalance.com/

*) http://www.budgetsim.org/nbs/

*) http://www.peacemakergame.com/

”The Anti-Bush Video Game”

From the website: “Combines humor, opinion, and fact to bring an entertaining and informative video game adventure to people everywhere.

"The use of this medium will hopefully reach many people who have not had the time or interest to read up on some of the appalling things that have taken place in our government and society over the past four years. For those of you who are paying attention, hopefully this game has helped to clarify some of the important things at stake in the upcoming elections. I realize that this game does not cover every issue, problem, and appalling action of the Bush administration. There are too many stories to report. Some issues ended up taking a back seat to others. Just know that this is just a silly game and please inform yourself for real and read books...and most importantly...please vote."

By Starvingeyes/J. Oda.

A brief comment was passed along on the NICAR-L (National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting) listserv this morning by Daniel Lathrop, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Said he:


Well, yeah.  An interesting story, but also one demonstrating why newspapers as institutions simply do not grasp the shift in power inherent in the Digital Age, a shift away from institutions and to citizens. 

First, the story reports: "The family connections between lobbying and lawmaking are prompting complaints that Congress is not doing enough to police itself."  Fair enough, but can't you SHOW us, in the online version, the evidence to support this sweeping generalization of "prompting complaints."  Why should we take your word for it, guys, when the evidence must be at hand.

Second, "...USA TODAY reviewed thousands of pages of financial disclosures and lobbyist registrations, property records, marriage announcements and other public documents to identify which lawmakers and staffers had relatives in the lobbying business."  WOW!  Would I like to see those pages, and even drill down into them to see if there's anything there related to my representative.  But nooooooooo.  The paper must of had some way to manage all this public-record data, some way to cross-reference it, to search it, to retrieve documents and content.  Why not put all that up on the web and let readers peruse their own subjects of interest?

Ironically, an example of the power shift mentioned above turns up, buried in a sidebar to the story, "Little Accountability in Earmarks."  There we find reference to something called the Sunlight Foundation.  I had not heard of the Sunlight Foundation, but, hey, it's only been around since the first of the year.  It turns out this organization is doing just what newspapers should be doing: leveraging the power of the digital environment to connect people to the data and tools needed to analyze that data so they can make informed decisions.

Another opportunity missed by the industry, and tragically so.

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All we can say is that we were out of the country when this package of stories first appeared in early September, and we missed it.  (Yeah, so much of the all-the-time-anywhere of the Internet.)  But do take a look at what the graduate journalism students at Northwestern University served up.  Good research coupled with good presentations on a topic most serious and under-reported.

Northwestern University Data Dilemma

Data Dilemma: Privacy in an Age of Security

Northwestern University's News21 fellows look at America's new system of surveillance, developed by the government with the help of private data mining firms after 9/11. One story uncovers new details about a secretive program in which the Education Department shared personal information on hundreds of student loan applicants with the FBI. Two immersive interactive presentations explore the digital trails we leave behind us in our daily lives and show you government data-mining initiatives that might incorporate information about you.

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A fine piece of work on the NYTimes web site following the crash of the small plane into an East Side hi-rise apartment building on Wednesday (11 Oct. 2006).  Check out "Small Plane Hits Building in Manhattan"

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Eric Lipton has a piece in Wedneday's (4 Oct. 2006) NYTimes about some "new" research efforts to come up with software "that would let the [U.S.] government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas."  (See "Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.")  Surely this is an interesting problem, and one made especially difficult when the translation factor kicks in. 

This is not, however, the first attempt to gin-up such software.  We have long admired the work done some years ago at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the ThemeRiver™ visualization.


We hope the PNNL will continue by giving us more of this intriguing tool.

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David Herzog posts this good tip to the NICAR-L list:

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From All Points Blog.  Read down into the original posting to see speculation as to why.  Perhaps "user mapping fatigue"?

Amazon Drops Mapping and BlockView and...

We have discontinued the A9 Instant Reward program, and the A9 Toolbar and personalized services such as history, bookmarks, and diary. To get help uninstalling your A9 Toolbar, visit toolbar.a9.com. We have also discontinued A9 Maps and the A9 Yellow Pages (including BlockView™).

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Another unique investigation by The New York Times gets A1 play in this Sunday's edition (1 Oct. 2006) under the hed "Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court's Rulings."  Adam Liptak and Janet Roberts (who probably did the heavy lifting on the data analysis) took a long-term look at who contributed to the campaigns of Ohio's Supreme Court justices.  It ain't a pretty picture if one believes the justices should be above lining their own pockets, whether it's a campaign fund or otherwise.

In any event, there seems to be a clear correlation between contributions -- and the sources -- and the outcome to too many cases.  A sidebar, "Case Studies: West Virginia and Illinois," would suggest there is much to be harvested by reporters in other states.

There is, thankfully, a fine description of how the data for the study was collected and analyzed.  See "How Information Was Collected"

There are two accompanying infographics, one  ("Ruling on Contributors' Cases" ) is much more informative than the other ("While the Case Is Being Heard, Money Rolls In" ), which is a good, but confusing, attempt to illustrate difficult concepts and relationships. 

At the end of the day, though, we are grateful for the investigation, data crunching and stories.

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