Derek Willis is the research database editor at The Washington Post and, as part of his job, he routinely hunts down data, crunches numbers, and helps turn the results into stories general interest readers can understand.
Willis’ blog today has links to several U.S. newspapers which crunched the data on spending by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
the Cincinnati Enquirer, … reports “that Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky’s share of the money approaches $50 million,” the Portland Press-Herald, which found that “the items purchased, while likely to be helpful during a terrorist attack, are largely being used for more routine purposes,” and the Hartford Courant, which found that “many Connecticut towns won’t spend all they’ve been provided and often had to be pushed just to spend anything.” The Bergen Record, meanwhile, explains why tracking the flow of money can be difficult.
[Links to each back at Derek’ s blog]