Race and crime

When I ask you what distinguishes online journalism, some of you answer a key is the space to do more than you could in another medium. This is an amazing and heart-rending illustration of that. I'd love to see them go beyond the blog now, to put some depth to the breadth, particularly by using audio or video to give voice to families that have so often been invisible. I think it's also interesting how on-scene reporting can deepen the kind of data you'd find in everyblock and how race played in different ways for the audience.

Cool Innovation

A few years ago, I happened to stumble across a site called chicagocrime.org that brought together mapping and data on crimes in Chicago. I found it downright thrilling as a former crime reporter because it gave people access to information both broad-based and hyper-local. I had always felt constrained by paper, ink and time, never able to tell my community all of what was going on and where. This site struck me as a fascinating extension of journalism.
So I was beyond bummed when it went offline last week ...
... But thrilled that its creator, Adrian Holovaty, launched a new project that takes the original model many steps forward. Dubbed "EveryBlock," the project gives users access to data well beyond crime. Want to know if a restaurant in your neighborhood has been inspected? It's there. News stories covering your block? Got that too. Even Flickr photos.
Go in and surf around in it. They're EveryBlocking now in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
Then tell me what you think. Is it a site you'd use in your own city? What's your opinion of the interface? What other kinds of information would you use?