"Information is good"

Picking up a thread from the monkey cage (great blog--worth a look), Slate has an article by Washington Post reporter Anne Applebaum arguing that "WikiLeaks' data-dump reporting simply makes a case for the existence of the mainstream media."

The article is a quick read. I want to pick it apart, and see where it takes us.

Things Applebaum gets:

• Facts need interpretation to be useful.
• In this instance WikiLeaks provided lots of facts and very little interpretation.

Things Applebaum misses:

• "Mainstream media" is not the only institution that can provide useful interpretation, context, expertise, etc.
• Transparency (making data public) breaks up mainstream media's monopoly on interpretation by allowing others (e.g. bloggers) to tell different stories.
  
• Transparency allows savvy readers to come to their own conclusions, instead of relying on reporters to decide which facts are important. Most people won't bother to do this. But it's useful to have multiple perspectives.
  

My takeaways:

• Data dumps don't replace mainstream media -- but they do threaten its monopoly on interpretation. The slightly defensive tone of the article suggests that Applebaum agrees, whether or not she wants to admit it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Big Media hater, but I am a big fan of transparent reporting.
• On a more philosophical level, the difference between raw data and interpretation leads to some interesting ideas about "information." Raw data is not actionable. Is it still information? For most people, the dense, jargon-laden text of military reports don't mean anything. Reading them doesn't give you any traction to change your opinion or do anything differently -- they are "uninformative." A few experts (e.g. troops in Afghanistan, military experts) know how to unpack and sift through these reports. Apparently, what constitutes "information" is in the eye of the beholder.