I spoke with the Guardian’s Simon Rogers, editor of the Data Blog, about their decision to publish thousands of facts from the Wikileaks Afghan War Diary. In this podcast, Simon introduces Wikileaks and its use by journalists, an reiterates the Guardian’s strategy of publishing raw data alongside stories and comment. During the conversation, Simon explained his perspective on publishing these leaked data and what people can do with it, pointing out that the Guardian doesn’t put any restrictions on reuse of the facts.

One of the major applications of these raw data, especially anything containing geographical information, is the ability to visualise them. One of the first things the Guardian produced from the leaked data was an interactive map of Improvised Explosive Device incedents affecting troops and civilians.

The opening up of the data behind such applications could prove to be a powerful catalyst for wider visualisation and applications built around the presence of authoritative journalistic facts. Putting the raw data in the hands of the web’s hackers has been a bold move from the Guardian, and I hope to see new and better stories come from the tools made possible by a supply of useful information.