ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that using the relational databases in which tabular files—known as tables—are intentionally joined to one another. Taking two large databases, one of people licensed to work as aides in home health care and one of criminals, The Star-Ledger, based in Newark, New Jersey, found more than 100 recently convicted criminals certified to work unsupervised in the homes of the most vulnerable residents of the state. Other reporters have looked at criminal incidents in the context of local police department decisions on deploying its patrol officers. Others examined environmental agency files on waste dumps and their locations and then looked at US Journalists have used enterprising matchmaking to ferret out criminals in school systems, nursing homes, or home health-care programs. Journalists seldom have others’ Social Security numbers, and therefore must be creative in coming up with one or more key fields to link unrelated databases.
