Meta news! I'm super excited to start talking about my newest nonprofit project, The Portland Record, a new take on mashing up open source tech with public data for local accountability journalism. portlandrecord.com
We are building The Portland Record in public, so I will have lots more to say as we go. Special thanks to @muckrock for agreeing to fiscally sponsor the project (which amounts to some low grade IRS-facing magic).
Instead of trying to tackle everything at once, we are sniping low-hanging data, with open source-ish tech and gigatons of research on the batpoop things local government does on the web.
Large shout out to Miles Watkins, who contributed key code for our first news app. Instead of (just) complaining about all the things our state's "vintage" campaign finance system can't do, we are--slowly!!--building an alternative.
I think this makes us the only news-ish org in the history of the world to soft launch with a functional campaign finance app? <crosses fingers it doesn't die a terrible death right now>
Thrilled to announce The Portland Record's first news research tool: the Campaign Funderator, which aggregates each day's larger donations and spending to #orpol folks in a simpler format. portlandrecord.com/articles/16395…
What "building in public" means is that we're adding features as our tiny budget and miniscule free time allow. If you've got ideas, send 'em. - 30 -
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