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Use of Data
January 8, 2025 – Writing fom Belagavi, Karnataka, IndiaLast month Newsjunkie senior reporter Angie Coiro interviewed environmental journalist and educator Mark Schapiro. The conversation touched on the challenges of science journalism in an anti-science age. One of the provocative concerns raised was the looming specter of the incoming Trump administration’s threat to cut climate science programs and limit access to federally funded websites at EPA, FDA, NASA, NOAA, and Department of the Interior. Mr. Schapiro urged journalists to get to those sites and download as much as possible before the doors close. Following up on that, Newsjunkie fanned out to find others in the science community who might hold similar views and, perhaps, strategies for coping. It wasn’t hard. Reporter R. Kriesel connected with Gretchen Gehrke of Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), who echoed Schapiro’s concern; and I heard from Brewster Kahle and Mark Graham of the Internet Archive, who shared details about the End of Term coalition (including Common Crawl Foundation, Stanford University Libraries, North Texas University Libraries, Internet Archive, and EDGI) which has undertaken a comprehensive effort to capture and preserve these at-risk websites. Newsjunkie has joined the effort. We are working to promote awareness of the EOT campaign through articles and outreach to other independent news organizations. Volunteers are urgently needed. Click for more information about supporting EOT. |
The Internet Archive is leading a coalition of data preservation professionals in a campaign to preserve government websites at risk of closure. The effort is known as the End of Term Harvest and Archive. An appeal has gone out to journalists and researchers to help in nominating URLs for preservation.
The Internet Archive and Common Crawl, two EOT partners, are well known for crawling the internet to save text, audio, video, links and html. Crawling is a method of systematically moving from one URL to another until all links have been explored and pages saved. This mature system spans and captures the vastness and complexity of the internet every day, preserving it for future study and other myriad uses. The federal government’s deep archives and ongoing research sites have been, and continue to be, crawled and preserved by the Internet Archive and others.
To make the most of the EOT Harvest, volunteers are nominating specific URLS to be preserved. This is where you come in: If you are in the practice of accessing government research for your journalism, make sure all those files and directories will be preserved by EOT. If you have never been to a government data and research site, it is not hard to learn about this rich resource. Here is the EPA page on accessing data and research.
Get to the nomination page. Find and push URLs onto the harvest list. Do it now.
Philip Roth said nothing bad can happen to a writer. I think you can grasp what he meant. Let us not be overwhelmed by bad news. Doing our jobs as writers—especially when it seems the future is dim—benefits all. Whether science is your beat or not, we must take it upon ourselves to act to preserve the tools and materials of democracy. The means are available. It is not right to block public access to publicly-funded research, but it is also not right to be complacent when we know what is likely to happen.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
—John Perry Barlow, from A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
Barlow was one of the clearest thinkers of the transition from PC era to Internet era, one of a loose group of futurists called the Digerati. He felt that institutional power, as embodied in government and industry, was corrupt and would pollute the upward potential of cyberspace. The emerging internet age promised to be a limitless zone of goodness, a world of all possibilities where a natural order based on self-expression, fairness, and community benefit would organically unfold and thrive.
It didn’t turn out that way, but many initiatives from those hopeful days managed to take root and survive. The Internet Archive is one of them. What they do, and how they empower the community with tools of learning, is proof that all is not lost, that some institutions can be trusted, and we may yet grow into a better society, one predicated upon truth, justice and decency.
Newsjunkie.net is dedicating itself to supporting the EOT Harvest. Will you join us?
Newsjunkie opinion and commentary by Gordon J. Whiting, publisher
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