Field Notes: Civic scraping

The question.

What practical ways can journalism operate as a civic information service to reduce wealth‑based access inequalities?

Why this matters.

When data gathering is driven by corporate profit and government control, quality news and information become commodities that favor wealthier and more powerful audiences.

This creates a widening information gap: those with means and access become information-rich while everyone else is left with scarce or low-quality information, deepening economic inequality.

Neither traditional open-data initiatives nor market-driven tech solutions—like universal internet access—have successfully closed this gap.

What we're exploring.

We're exploring civic scraping as a model that treats information as a public good. Rather than starting with available data, civic scraping starts with community questions and needs, then works backward to obtain the necessary information.

Key distinctions of this approach include:

• Needs-driven: The research agenda is set by clearly identified information needs, not by what data is easily available.
• Proactive not reactive: It proactively extracts information that isn't published in an accessible form, often by pulling data from public websites or records.
• Public interest first: Data holders may suggest that they “own” the data and that legal rights protect them from scraping, but we believe that the public also has a right to that data, perhaps a greater one.

By focusing on service and sharing the data openly, this model re-envisions data collection as an act of service-oriented journalism.

More questions to consider.

• How can we build collaborative data-sharing infrastructure, similar to libraries or public archives?
• Should governments and data holders be able to claim intellectual property and privacy protections to prevent civic scraping?
• How can we share tools with smaller news organizations and community groups to help them gather data?
• Beyond data, how does the service-oriented mindset of civic scraping reshape a journalist's day-to-day role and skills?
• How can we maintain and update our databases regularly to ensure they remain a reliable source of public knowledge?

We'd love to hear from you on these questions—especially if you have answers or ideas—or anything else. Don’t hesitate to get in touch at hello@gazzetta.xyz.