After months of wrangling, you finally get that database you wanted from the county courthouse. You crunch the data with your database manager. You slice and dice it with a spreadsheet. You think you're done analyzing and ready to start interviewing.
Stop there and think again. Unless you run your data through a desktop mapping program to look for geographic patterns you could be missing the big picture.
"The magic of mapping software is that it provides a visual interpretation of your data," said Bill Loving, editor for computer-assisted reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Mapping is just such a quick and useful way of taking what could be an otherwise unintelligible pile of information and finding the patterns in it," says Steve Doig, research editor at the Miami Herald.
In the aftermath of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, Doig used AtlasGIS for DOS to analyze 60,000 damage inspection reports. In the Herald's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Doig's analysis showed how homes built after 1980 fared much worse than sturdier older homes.
Desktop mapping growing
More and more, journalists like Doig are using desktop mapping software to supplement traditional data analysis. One paper, the Oregonian in Portland, hired a master's student in geography as an intern for this school year to delve into desktop mapping, says Gail Hulden, assistant librarian and research director. In one of the clearest signs of desktop mapping's arrival, Microsoft Excel for Windows 95 includes Data Map, a tool for quickly displaying spreadsheet data.
Newsrooms that use desktop mapping are finding great stories. They've been able to locate clusters of blighted properties, pinpoint pollution and analyze demographics. News artists have turned these analytical maps into eye-grabbing graphics.
Still a CAR frontier
Yet, desktop mapping remains one of computer-assisted reporting's frontiers. The 1994 University of Miami national CAR study found just 17 percent of the 208 responding newsrooms used mapping for analysis.
Chalk that up to a couple of reasons: Desktop mapping on the PC is relatively new, and the investment can run into the thousands of dollars.
High-end mapping analysis programs, called geographic information systems (GIS), have been on mainframes for two decades. But it wasn't until around 1990 that desktop mapping caught on in newsrooms across the country, thanks to two factors.
First, in the late 1980s, GIS program makers introduced easy-to-use PC software. Second, the results from the 1990 Census became widely - and inexpensively - available in computer form, along with the public domain geographic files.
In fact, the Census provided the initial push for many reporters and editors to learn desktop mapping.
Shortly after the Census, New York Times database editor John Freed used MapInfo to analyze the racial makeup of proposed city council districts. Under the Voting Rights Act, New York had to submit its redistricting plan to the U.S. Justice Department.
When the Justice Department rejected the plan, the Times used its own findings to show why: East Harlem and the South Bronx's Hispanic population had been splintered into numerous districts - putting nearly all of the Hispanics in the minority, Freed said. "It was very obvious."
Mapping tools
High-end mapping programs, such as AtlasGIS and MapInfo give users a number of tools for analyzing data. Less expensive programs likely will have fewer of these features.
Thematic mapping. This common feature takes your data and converts it to a map that uses colors or symbols to show variations. The Minneapolis Star Tribune used AtlasGIS for DOS to show changes in property values in the Twin Cities. Seeing the extent and location of the areas in decline, marked in red, was stunning, Loving said.
The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and other newspapers have used thematic mapping and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to find inner-city Census tracts with high home loan rejection rates.
Address matching or geocoding. You know those pin maps that police use to track murders? This feature allows you to create the computer equivalent. However, you must first use the mapping program's geocoder to assign latitude and longitude coordinates to each record in your database. The Morning Call geocoded branch offices of merging banks. After we mapped the branches, we looked for overlap and speculated which ones might be shuttered.
Selecting. A good mapping program allows you to select records that meet certain geographic criteria. MapInfo for Windows, the program I use, lets users select records that fall within boundaries or circles drawn on the map with a mouse. The top programs also have an SQL database manager that lets you find areas that meet certain criteria.
Flexibility. The program should be able to work with a variety of geographic, text, spreadsheet and database files. In addition, the programs should be able to export to a wide range of formats.
Geographic and 'attribute' data
Mapping programs use two kinds of data: geographic data and "attribute" data. The former defines features on the map (streets, county boundaries, rivers). The latter is what you analyze. When you use a desktop mapping program, you add layers of geographic and attribute data.
Most mapping programs come bundled with some geographic data. However, you'll probably need to buy other geographic data to match the locations in your databases. If you want to analyze Federal Election Commission data, you'll need ZIP boundaries because the database contains the donor's ZIP code. If you're thinking about demographic analysis, get boundaries for census tracts or block groups that constitute tracts.
Desktop mapping can cost thousands of dollars, but it doesn't have to, Doig says. Anyone who looks hard enough can find inexpensive geographic data sources. For instance, the Herald paid just $30 for election districts from Dade County. Local planning agencies may have the data you need. Also, check with university geography professors.
Smaller newsrooms, or those with a tight budget, should talk to other departments (especially marketing or research) at their news organizations and see if they can share a desktop mapping program.
That's what the Flint Journal did about five years ago. The newsroom and two other departments chipped in for AtlasGIS for DOS, says Mary Ann Chick Whiteside, a former editor who's now the paper's new media manager.
Since then, the Journal has printed a number of mapping-based stories, including one showing clusters of homes for the mentally ill. "We knew they were all in the same ZIP code, but we plotted them and found them on streets back-to-back," Whiteside says.
A reporter could have taken a list of group home addresses and stuck pins in a map to find the patterns, she said. "But what reporter has time to do that?"
David Herzog can be reached at (610) 820-6584, or send e-mail to herzog@pulitzer.mcall.com
Newsrooms that use desktop mapping are finding great stories. They've been able to locate clusters of blighted
Yet, desktop mapping remains one of computer-assisted reporting's frontiers. The 1994 University of Miami national CAR study found just 17 percent of the 208 responding newsrooms used mapping for analysis.
Chalk that up to a couple of reasons: Desktop mapping on the PC is relatively new, and the investment can run into the thousands of dollars.
High-end mapping analysis programs, called geographic information systems (GIS), have been on mainframes for two decades. But it wasn't until around 1990 that desktop mapping caught on in newsrooms across the country, thanks to two factors.
First, in the late 1980s, GIS program makers introduced easy-to-use PC software. Second, the results from the 1990 Census became widely - and inexpensively - available in computer form, along with the public domain geographic files.
In fact, the Census provided the initial push for many reporters and editors to learn desktop mapping.
Shortly after the Census, New York Times database editor John Freed used MapInfo to analyze the racial makeup of proposed city council districts. Under the Voting Rights Act, New York had to submit its redistricting plan to the U.S. Justice Department.
When the Justice Department rejected the plan, the Times used its own findings to show why: East Harlem and the South Bronx's Hispanic population had been splintered into numerous districts - putting nearly all of the Hispanics in the minority, Freed said. "It was very obvious."
Mapping tools
High-end mapping programs, such as AtlasGIS and MapInfo give users a number of tools for analyzing data. Less expensive programs likely will have fewer of these features. Thematic mapping. This common feature takes your data and converts it to a map that uses colors or symbols to show variations. The Minneapolis Star Tribune used AtlasGIS for DOS to show changes in property values in the Twin Cities. Seeing the extent and location of the areas in decline, marked in red, was stunning, Loving said.
The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and other newspapers have used thematic mapping and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to find inner-city Census tracts with high home loan rejection rates.
Address matching or geocoding. You know those pin maps that police use to track murders? This feature allows you to create the computer equivalent. However, you must first use the mapping program's geocoder to assign latitude and longitude coordinates to each record in your database. The Morning Call geocoded branch offices of merging banks. After we mapped the branches, we looked for overlap and speculated which ones might be shuttered. Selecting. A good mapping program allows you to select records that meet certain geographic criteria. MapInfo for Windows, the program I use, lets users select records that fall within boundaries or circles drawn on the map with a mouse. The top programs also have an SQL within boundaries or circles drawn on the map with a mouse. The top programs also have an SQL database manager that lets you find areas that meet certain criteria. Flexibility. The program should be able to work with a variety of geographic, text, spreadsheet and database files. In addition, the programs should be able to export to a wide range of formats.
Geographic and 'attribute' data
Mapping programs use two kinds of data: geographic data and "attribute" data. The former defines features on the map (streets, county boundaries, rivers). The latter is what you analyze. When you use a desktop mapping program, you add layers of geographic and attribute data.
Most mapping programs come bundled with some geographic data. However, you'll probably need to buy other geographic data to match the locations in your databases. If you want to analyze Federal Election Commission data, you'll need ZIP boundaries because the database contains the donor's ZIP code. If you're thinking about demographic analysis, get boundaries for census tracts or block groups that constitute tracts.
Desktop mapping can cost thousands of dollars, but it doesn't have to, Doig says. Anyone who looks hard enough can find inexpensive geographic data sources. For instance, the Herald paid just $30 for election districts from Dade County. Local planning agencies may have the data you need. Also, check with university geography professors.
Smaller newsrooms, or those with a tight budget, should talk to other departments (especially marketing or research) at their news organizations and see if they can share a desktop mapping program.
That's what the Flint Journal did about five years ago. The newsroom and two other departments chipped in for AtlasGIS for DOS, says Mary Ann Chick Whiteside, a former editor who's now the paper's new media manager.
Since then, the Journal has printed a number of mapping-based stories, including one showing clusters of homes for the mentally ill. "We knew they were all in the same ZIP code, but we plotted them and found them on streets back-to-back," Whiteside says.
A reporter could have taken a list of group home addresses and stuck pins in a map to find the patterns, she said. "But what reporter has time to do that?"
David Herzog can be reached at (610) 820-6584, or send e-mail to herzog@pulitzer.mcall.com