Public Info Doesn’t Always Want to Be Free

In 2009, a senior web editor asked me and another developer a question: could our development group build a new news application for Tampabay.com that displayed a gallery of mug shots? Stories about goofy crimes with strange mug shots were popular with readers. The vision, on the part of management, was a website that would display the mugshots collected every day from publicly available websites by two editors—well paid, professional editors with otherresponsibilities. Newsrooms are many things. Alive. Filled with energy. Fueled by stress, coffee and profanity. But they are also idea factories. Day after day, ideas come from everywhere. From reporters on the beat. From editors reading random things. From who knows where. Some of them are brilliant. Some would never work. Most need more people and time than are available. And some are dumber than anyone cares toadmit.We thought this idea was nuts. Why would we pay someone, let alone an editor, to fetch mug shots from the Internet? Coul...