Making information accessible and highlighting what needs attention.
Investigation differs from research in its orientation: where research seeks to understand systems and answer un-answered questions, investigation seeks to expose what's being obscured. It also differs from documentation: where documentation records and preserves what exists, investigation asks what should be happening but isn't.
Hyperlocal information often doesn't exist in documented form/scattered/restricted/illegible. The questions that matter to neighborhoods, eg. where do public resources go? What's being built? How do the systems we interact with actually work? Do they actually work? these often lack accessible answers. News coverage optimizes for scale, not depth. Government data exists but it's so inconsistent that it's hard to know what's even available, whether it's current, or if you'll need an RTI request to get it.
We're exploring whether communities can build their own information infrastructure: combining neighborhood knowledge with systematic methods to surface and share what matters locally.
This fiber covers media analysis, digital infrastructure transparency, neighborhood governance tracking, and investigative methods.