Scripps Howard News Service's "Grave Mistakes" project was born out of a failed voter-fraud investigation in 2008 and some offhand remarks by data-savvy colleagues at the NICAR conference in Raleigh, N.C., this year.

What we ended up with was a fascinating story of how simple typographical errors by a huge federal bureaucracy can have a frightening impact upon the lives of everyday Americans. Members of Congress have begun inquiries as a result of this project.

Journalists for many years have used the Social Security Administration's ominously titled "Death Master File" database since it is supposed to list ...

ProPublica’s recent Opportunity Gap project brought together reporting on an important education issue – whether low-income students in public schools have equal access to advanced classes - statistical analysis and way-cool interactive tools.

The project used a new set of Department of Education data that tracked enrollment in advanced classes and special programs in public schools. This data is known as the Civil Rights Data Collection, which is compiled by DOE’s Office of Civil Rights.

The idea came from ProPublica education reporter Sharona Coutts, who got an early copy of the OCR data and wanted to see if there was ...