{
  "id": "1999-may-car-on-the-map",
  "slug": "1999-may-car-on-the-map",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1999-may-car-on-the-map.html",
  "year": 1999,
  "month": "May",
  "monthNum": 5,
  "headline": "CAR on the map",
  "kicker": "CAR REPORT FROM THE NETHERLANDS",
  "author_name": "Dick van Eijk",
  "author_title": "Reporter",
  "affiliation": "NRC Handelsblad",
  "summary": "Dick van Eijk details how early database and mapping projects in the Netherlands, particularly concerning election results, helped legitimize computer-assisted reporting as a vital journalistic tool.",
  "keywords": [
    "Netherlands",
    "mapping",
    "elections"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Technology",
    "Government & Politics"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "dBase",
    "Lotus Approach",
    "MapInfo"
  ],
  "full_text": "In the past five years, computer-assisted reporting in the Netherlands has developed from an obscure activity of an individual reporter to a formally established practice at two national newspapers. Mapping played an important role in breaking ground for the new professional methods.\n\nTo American journalists, it may seem obvious that in their jobs they can use a computer for many tasks other than writing a story. Computer-assisted reporting is something that has existed for thirty years and can be learned at seminars, boot camps and conferences. The situation in the Netherlands, and in the rest of Europe, is entirely different. Only very recently has computer-assisted reporting been gaining momentum in a few countries, notably Sweden and the Netherlands.\n\nI did not know of the American tradition in 1993 when I used a database program (dBase III Plus for MS DOS) to enter the names and positions of more than 2,000 top officials of social-security institutions in the Netherlands. The Dutch parliament was doing a formal investigation on the execution of social-security laws, and we were curious about who actually governed these executing bodies.\n\nFrom the database analysis, it turned out that there was a relatively small network of unknown officials that met several times a week to determine policy. These officials actually ran the social-security programs. I interviewed most of them and attended, with their permission, a few of their meetings. I wrote two background stories about their hidden world. The stories did not mention that a computer database was used preparing them. Only a few of my colleagues knew.\n\nThe database program had proved useful, but at that time I did not realize that the technique had the potential of being an integral part of everyday journalistic practice. That changed during the next year.\n\nMapping wish list\n\nTo everyone's surprise, local parties gained a strong position in the March 1994 municipal elections. The polls had not predicted the rise of local parties because they concentrated on national trends and national parties. What we needed, but did not have, was a map showing the percentage of votes collected by local parties in each municipality. Speaking of maps, wouldn't it be nice to show other aspects of election results as well, such as where particular parties were strong or where they had gained or lost the most votes?\n\nThat should be possible with a computer, I thought, though I had no idea how to do it. Our national editor encouraged me to find out. I worked largely on evenings and weekends to be able to present such maps on the day after the parliamentary elections, which were only two months away. I made myself familiar with the world of Windows, with Lotus Approach and with the newly discovered mapping program, MapInfo. The application worked, and the day after the elections the newspaper ran a page containing eight maps showing the strength as well as gains and losses of the major parties. The maps were considered a big hit, an experience that would recur in later projects. The explanation, I think, is that the maps showed information not available in such a form before. Their value could be judged without knowing anything about the database analysis behind them.\n\nThe power of maps would prove to be an important argument for CAR in the Netherlands. The election maps were discussed on national television, and the professional magazine De Journalist wrote about them. We have repeated the map",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2000-september-no-boundaries",
      "score": 0.221
    },
    {
      "slug": "2004-march-mapping-a-new-look-at-presidential-results",
      "score": 0.165
    },
    {
      "slug": "2000-september-tipsheets",
      "score": 0.159
    },
    {
      "slug": "2004-june-using-car-to-cover-the-vote",
      "score": 0.156
    },
    {
      "slug": "2000-september-for-more-information",
      "score": 0.15
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1999-may-car-on-the-map.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1999-may-car-on-the-map.json"
}