Want to try some local data journalism but don't want to start completely from scratch? The new ProPublica Data Store can be a resource of free or relatively inexpensive datasets that might be relevant to your community, or to put local issues or data in a useful context.

ProPublica is a leader in data journalism. While they generally cover issues at a national level, much of the data they collect also can be applied to states, counties, or communities. The Data Store includes both free datasets (obtained through FOIA requests) and "premium" datasets acquired from non-public sources. Journalists can buy a premium dataset for $200.

Examples include:

• Medicare Part D prescriptions for 2011 (free). Includes all drugs prescribed by doctors 11 or more times that year to Part D patients, including those 65 and older. Used in ProPublica's Prescriber Checkup.
• Recovery Tracker data (premium). Combines records from the recipient-reported data on Recovery.gov and Recovery Act grants and loans reported by agencies on USAspending.gov. Used in ProPublica's Recovery Tracker.

The advantage of using datasets from ProPublica is that this data has already been cleaned and pre-processed by trained professionals with substantial data journalism expertise. This can save time, confusion, and frustration in your data journalism efforts.

So far the selection of datasets is limited, but more will be added soon.