This is such a great moment to be joining the team at @biglocalnews.bsky.social! We have so much important work ahead and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. biglocalnews.org/content/news...
Because this database is for everyone. Victims of police violence, law enforcement hiring officials, civil rights advocates, researchers, attorneys and journalists can now investigate these once-secret records for themselves. 6/
Once files are grouped together, we use LLMs to better extract key facts about each case. Data like dates, case type and providing agency help people filter through the nearly 12,000 cases of police force and misconduct. 5/
We get police reports, IA investigations, 911 calls, autopsies, taser logs. Files vary significantly in format and level of information, coming from hundreds of agencies. We use LLMs and computer vision to extract key data from files, which helped us place files into nearly 12,000 cases. 4/
With journalists across the state I co-founded the California Reporting Project. We’ve filed more than 3,500 requests and fought for transparency in court.
While reporting, journalists and data scientists also built tools to organize files, extract data and prepare them for publishing. 3/
State law changed in 2019, allowing people to request internal investigations into police violence and misconduct for the first time.
We knew collecting this information would require fielding hundreds of record requests and working with thousands of documents.
So we decided to work together. 2/
We’ve launched a database with about 1.5 million pages of once-secret records detailing when law enforcement officers in California seriously injured someone or an agency found an officer violated policy with @kqednews.kqed.org, @sfchronicle.com @latimes.com @calmatters.org 1/
This database is the product of 7 years of work by a multidisciplinary team of journalists, data scientists, lawyers and civil rights advocates.
We’re not done. We’re still requesting records + building new features at @biglocalnews.bsky.social @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social @ucbids.bsky.social 7
A big day for Big Local News - so glad we could be a part of this Pulitzer Prize work with The Balimore Banner and The New York Times Investigative Reporting Fellowship! biglocalnews.org/content/news...
Big Local News is hiring a managing director! DM me with any questions. biglocalnews.org/content/news...
We're thrilled to share that Big Local News has received a $3.9 million grant from the Knight Foundation to help strengthen the infrastructure that supports local journalism nationwide.
biglocalnews.org/content/news...
