I disagree. If you want to get people engaged with the level of unemployment in the country, showing them a chart of unemployment figures are not going to engage them much. Dashboards, charts, etc. are great for engaging people in things they already care about.
Instead, a journalist can contextualise those jobs figures and explain why someone you don't know being out of work can affect your life. Narrative is, and always has been, a method of engaging people.
Never mind the fact that journalists also uncover data themselves. Formalising whistleblowers is all very well, but you still want someone to investigate. Take yesterday's story of a Congressman who claimed more miles in expenses than his car had driven - that was a reporter querying FOIL records to match up the numbers. Two completely different data sets in different governmental bodies. There would be no whistleblower there. Who heads up these information reporting networks, the government? What about government corruption?
What you are describing sounds ideal - but that's exactly what it is, an ideal. Very few real life systems work like that.
Instead, a journalist can contextualise those jobs figures and explain why someone you don't know being out of work can affect your life. Narrative is, and always has been, a method of engaging people.
Never mind the fact that journalists also uncover data themselves. Formalising whistleblowers is all very well, but you still want someone to investigate. Take yesterday's story of a Congressman who claimed more miles in expenses than his car had driven - that was a reporter querying FOIL records to match up the numbers. Two completely different data sets in different governmental bodies. There would be no whistleblower there. Who heads up these information reporting networks, the government? What about government corruption?
What you are describing sounds ideal - but that's exactly what it is, an ideal. Very few real life systems work like that.