Just wanted to let the JA community know that we’ve submitted a Knight News Challenge open government grant application to expand OpenMissouri to our cities. If you’d like to know more, or support the application, go here: https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/submission/openmissouri-for-cities/ Thanks!

Thanks for having me Emily, I enjoyed the chat and am looking forward to more conversations and suggestions!

Yes, this was a good point that Politution made, too. Journalists should read any documentation (including any original survey forms) that accompanies online data. Read the FAQs, read the About the data pages. Look for contact information so you can find the experts if you need help understanding the data. In my experience, the people [...]

Some of the data that’s referenced on EconoCheck does go down to the metropolitan statistical area, so you might be able to use some, assuming it’s on point with what you’re reporting. You bring up a good point for us: most reporting that’s local demands more fine-grained data that U.S. source offer.

Emily, the biggest takeaway for me was getting reminded, over and over, that statistics are numbers created by people and thus are flawed. As I mentioned before, a lot of the key indicators are based on surveys, so they are only estimates. Sometimes agencies use old data. For instance, if the U.S. DOT lacks a [...]