fj-ethics

Case studies involving the ethical use of open data in modern digital journalism

Public records are all around us. We have the tech to make these records perfectly searchable and indexable. But should we? Journalists and developers needs to consider the ethical ramifications the publication of open records can wreak on individuals and organizations now that it's effectively impossible to completely redact after publishing. This workshop aims to create thoughtful case studies for professionals and students to consider when there is legal clarity yet ethical uncertainty with publishing public records data.

How to contribute a case study

1. Fork this repository
2. Copy the case study template
3. Create a new file and call it something like descriptive-case-study-name.md with a Markdown extension.
4. Open a pull request

Case study template

# Title

Summary of the ethical scenario wondering if a specific type of public record data should be published or not. 

## Background facts

* Include legal
* historical and
* other facts that can 
* help inform the discussion

## Real world happening

Provide a few sentences to desribe a real world scenario that doesn't have an obvious yes/no decision of whether this data should be published.

## Background news links

* [Include links](http://link.com)
* [to news coverage](http://link.com)
* [from the event](http://link.com)
* [and aftermath](http://link.com)

## Discussion questions

1. questions
2. should be useful
3. for student conversation

Possible topics

• gun permits
• tax records
• health inspections
• salary data
  • professor
  • government employee
  • elected official
• ?