"Comment is free but facts are sacred', is a famous quote from C.P. Scott, founding editor of the Guardian newspaper. The Guardian is now sharing a lot of facts by throwing open their data store, where readers can see for themselves the facts and data behind many big stories. The News Corporation phone hacking scandal is presented as a visualisation of who knew what when, and there is data on whether poverty was a factor in the recent UK riots. You can also get a spreadsheet of all the paper's spreadsheets, which includes all the data the paper has covered over the last two years. This kind of transparency is very welcome, allowing readers to check the facts behind the headlines - and maybe use the data themselves to find out other things. There is also a blog that explains it all, and the Open Platform allows you to build applications, use APIs, and so on.