Last month, MinnPost in Minneapolis released an interactive application that shows Minneapolis’ monthly crime data, reports Poynter.org. Minneapolis released its data in a “structured format,” i.e. Excel spreadsheets including location data that Minnpost could pull into its application (the process was not without issues, MinnPost's Kaeti Hinck and Alan Palazzolo write in explaining how they built the app).
When it came time for the department to release its August data, the Minneapolis Police Department said it would post them only in PDF form because of “issues with the Excel format,” explaining later that “the crime stats are subject to being corruptible.” MinnPost says: “Data in any format can be manipulated; it is up to the source, in this case the MPD, to confirm the accuracy of the data.”