In spite of weak (or a complete lack) of open record laws, some European journalists are pioneering computer-assisted reporting in their own countries.
Much like the pioneers in the United States (particularly those at small to medium size news organizations) these journalists are breaking ground by being the first to ever request raw data from government agencies - and in some cases, they're getting them.
YLE, public broadcasting of Finland, has also begun training television, radio and teletext reporters in using computers at its Radio and Television Institute in Helsinki. In January and October of this year, NICAR did hands-on sessions at the Institute. Heikki Hiilamo, a YLE investigative reporter and NICAR boot camp attendee has been leading the charge there. Hiilamo, currently on leave from the company, helped develop the October training session.
The difference in the January and October sessions was notable. Fewer participants expressed concern with not being able to get information from the government and more of the participants had used the Internet regularly as a reporting tool. Two of the reporters even came to the October class with economic data they had acquired and wanted to analyze.
In some cases, databases - such as tax information on individuals - is more readily available in Finland than in the United States. And the same techniques we use for building databases from paper records (especially in smaller communities) can be used in countries where an electronic database might not be available.
Finland has one CAR advantage: It is a country that embraces technology with a higher rate of Internet connections than most U.S. cities. (With the exception of the text being in Finnish, many Helsinki billboards bear a resemblance to Silicon Valley.)
Most government agencies in Finland put information on the Internet. As is happening in the U.S., the government is providing information in Adobe Acrobat files that are not easily transferred to a database or spreadsheet and as in the U.S., reporters are faced with retyping the information into their computers. Among the government agencies providing databases in a useful format are:
The bank of Finland (www.bof.fi) provides downloadable economic databases. (And also provides information in English for all of us non-Finnish speakers. Statistics Finland (www.statfin.fi) is their Census Bureau - plus more. European Forest Institute (www.efi.joensuu.fi/) provides logging and forestry information.
In addition many European universities provide useful research data on their Web sites.
Reporters in Finland are also realizing what other journalists outside the United States have found that data from U.S. agencies also can be valuable. Stat-USA (www.stat-usa.com) for example, provides information about imports and exports by country.
We'll have another report since NICAR is visiting Finland in November.