Hi Barrett,
I hope this message finds you well. My name is Chris Arsenault and I am an editor with Al jazeera's english language website. I just read your first piece on data mining. While I really like the investigative angle
and the research, I think the piece lacks pull and will need some additions and re-writes.
To over-simplify, I am left thinking: Who cares about all these e-mails and junk after I read it. You need to humanise the issue a little bit. And explain clearly to someone who isn't familiar with the issue why they
should care about this. As it stands, the piece reads too much like a technical document.
I am hoping you can talk to some privacy advocates (start with the ACLU and go from there) aout why this is scarey, and then have them comment on particular aspects of the case. Ideally, I would like you to talk to
someone who is a victim of data mining. Please do at least 4 solid interviews.
At one point you list a bunch of companies and then a bunch of services provided. Some of this information could be interesting, but you need to walk the reader through why it is important.
Take a look at some of the stuff the Guardian and other papers have done with Wikileaks.
We are really excited about the investigation and look forward to running it. However, let's really make it punchy.
thanks
let me know when you can send a new version.
chris
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