Photo is what you get if you search for "Big Data."  So there.

In Part I, I went over how "old-school" media dyanmics lead invariably to cliches, buzzwords and double-speak in place of actual information, because (for the most part), frankly, my dear, very few people give a goshdarn, and, even when they do, the lethal combination of savvy, deviousness and laziness (or various combinations) usually result in something other than "the real story" coming out from behind the curtain anyway.

But now ... this is the dawning of the Age of Big Data.

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How information gets from "inside" to "outside"

Now ... due to the Internet (although it was possible, just more difficult for non-media types, before), information can get "dumped" -- unfiltered -- to the outside.

Maybe an entire transcript of an administrative hearing can be found online; maybe tax filings or property records; maybe a whole raft of statistics (not just baseball, maybe from the Census Bureau or HHS, but including baseball).

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How information from the "inside" gets to the "general public"

Now ... anyone with the willingness to make the effort can comb through the publicly available "unfiltered" information to find "the real story" that the traditional media "didn't get right" or "didn't, for whatever reason, bother getting."  Analyzing publicly available baseball statistics is a form of this.

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The "general public" ... well ... :

Still the same!  Human nature not changed by ability of bloggers to analyze the outcome of every Mike Morse plate appearance!  Exclusive video at 11!

Still not interested in complexity or too much detail.  Deal with it.

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Big Data will expose the "real story" ... or will it?

Big Data will, absolultely and invariably, expose a different understanding of the underlying reality than the cliche/buzzword/double-speak version put forth by the "old-school" media dynamic.

And it will probably be a better understanding.

But ...

Almost any explanation will be better.  But does being relatively "better" make it right?

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Is the battle being fought over a Potemkin Village?

Is there a fascination with knocking over the "pretext" at the expense of "the merits"?  Maybe.

As it happens, I did an article dealing with exactly that back in March entitled:  Not "Veteran" Presence ... ISO Presence.

The point was it didn't matter whether the words coming out of the front office were the usual "grizzled vet" or "knows how to win" platitudes.  What mattered was the team needed ISO and was trying to get it.