The first example of a database most computer-assisted reporters in training hear about is the telephone book. We nod OK, but can't imagine using it for any reason other than that for which it was produced.
But a more focused roster of a community of sorts with some additional information can turn up facts and trends and, thus, stories that no one in your city may have thought about before.
That's what the El Paso Times learned from a database of city government's 6,500 employees recently. We got names, pay, ethnicity, gender, marital status, department and job titles. We also got Social Security numbers just by asking for a unique identifier.
In a city of more than 600,000 people, about 72 percent of whom are Hispanic, we expected to find that city government was out of whack ethnically. Instead we found that city government to be almost a mirror image of the city in terms of ethnicity and, not surprisingly, income.
Gender was another matter. We found that women make up only 23 percent of the city's full-time work force and that only 17 women are among the 100 best-paid employees. That led to a lead story about the apparent "glass ceiling" and about what women who made it to the top went through.
For instance, comparing the 100 best-paid men and to the 100 top women, we found that 71 percent of the men are married compared with 39 percent of the women.
The city employees roster was an easy little hit, and the stories it produced got people talking. Even before the stories came out, we used that database to analyze four city departments for other stories. I expect we'll be digging into that data again and again in coming months.
David Crowder can be reached at (800) 351-6007, ext. 6194, or send e-mail to 75352.2352@compuserve.com.