Tool of the week for journalists - DocumentCloud, to analyse documents as data
DocumentCloud, a platform to upload and analyse documents as data
– 1 min read
This article was migrated from an old version of our website in 2025. As a result, it might have some low-quality images or non-functioning links - if there's any issues you'd like to see fixed, get in touch with us at info@journalism.co.uk.
Tool of the week:
What is it?
A platform to allow you to search and analyse documents as data.
DocumentCloud works by encouraging users to upload documents, it then pushes them through the Thomson Reuters-powered OpenCalais , a "toolkit of capabilities" that can be used by news sites for semantic analysis. Document sharing is good practice that many news desks have adopted and something all journalists should consider to enable data to be shared and searchable.
How is it of use to journalists?
Journalists can search for keywords and analyse documents as data.
For example, try searching for " phone hacking " and you are presented with a series of parliamentary reports, the text of speeches and letters contributed by the Guardian, New York Times, the Lens and the Telegraph.
You can then dig deeper, view the documents on a timeline and find related documents. <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-39725" height="198" src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=43871&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" title="DocumentCloud search" width="540"> <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-39726" height="409" src="?cmd=ShowAsset&assetID=43872&nosurround=true&fakeExtension=.jpg" title="DocumentCloud timeline" width="540">
Written by
Sarah Marshall is VP Audience Strategy at Condé Nast. She leads distribution and channel strategy globally. She is also the former technology editor for Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)
Comments
