Af Jesper Ishøj

During the past year Danish web media have begun to embrace the use of interactive maps as a tool in improving journalistic stories on the Internet. Interactive maps give web journalists unique new possibilities.

The Danish journal of spatial information “Perspektiv” has published a theme about communication and media. This article is my contribution.

In this article I assess the influence of Google Maps on this development and the way US journalists have integrated the use of interactive maps into the US media. I will look at the impact on Danish journalism with the use of interactive maps and I will give my view on how interactive maps will become a powerful tool in communication.

When the committee behind the most prestigious annual Danish journalistic award, the Cavling Prize, announced the five nominees for 2008, one of the stories chosen had used Google Maps in a pivotal role.
The story in national newspaper Berlingske Tidende centred on a list of 75 incidents when police had not reacted to calls from the public. In some cases these incidents involved fatalities.

Under the headline “Did the police come when you called?” readers were urged to write to the newspaper if they had experienced that police had dismissed the need to react to an emergency call.

Examples of police failings came from all regions in Denmark and each case was pinpointed on a Google Map on the newspaper’s website. Simultaneously the newspaper published articles by its team of investigative journalists where relatives and witnesses told of cases where the police had not responded to their requests for help, claiming that a police response could have, in some cases, saved lives.
The map was a particularly strong element in the coverage on the Internet as it illustrated that there were problems in police response in all regions in Denmark. The map gave readers and users the option to click on icons to access more information about each individual case where police had failed to respond. Thus, the newspaper was able to present unique story not found elsewhere.
The combined information available via the map and articles in Berlingske Tidende caused a heated debate on whether the recently implemented Danish Police Force reforms had caused a worsening of service to the public.

“Without the web universe and the interaction with the public this police story would have been nothing but an interlude” explained Berlingske journalist Morten Frich to the trade magazine Journalisten (the Journalist) who ran a story in December 2008 on the working techniques behind the project known as ‘Forbrydelsen’ (the crime).

When the candidates for the most prestigious journalistic award were to be selected in December, the stories of police failings had already had tangible consequences. The head of the Danish Police Force (Rigspolitichefen) had been sacked. An investigation into the police had uncovered more cases of police failings than the newspaper had been able to find. A second investigation was launched to establish whether there were even more cases yet to come to light. Parliamentary politicians were set to review the entire police reform again.

The Berlingske Tidende project was in many ways the most recent culmination of a development in Danish media in 2008 when interactive maps became a new and often central tool for journalists. This was reflected in the fact that on January 7th 2009 the reporters from Berlingske Tidende won the Cavling Prize.

A determining factor for this development in the media has been Google’s launch in 2007 of a new feature in its Internet map service, called My Maps.
In itself not epoch-making news in the light of what the World had seen the previous years: in 2005 Google Maps were introduced, the following year Google Earth became an institution soon after its presentation -  A new way for users to understand the Internet world.
But the addition of My Maps looks set to play a large role in the media.

In one stroke it is now very simple to immediately produce basic interactive maps. Previously, one would have needed some basic skills in programming web pages and html to use Google maps effectively. A challenge only a few journalists had taken up and never for current news coverage.

With the new feature major technical qualifications were no longer needed. Any Internet user could establish an account with Google, choose My Maps and mark points and draw polygons in a map and with just a few clicks, make the result available on their own website.

This new tool from Google quickly came to play a role in the US media as vicious wildfires broke out in the autumn of 2007 across large parts of California. Local media started producing Internet maps where readers could follow hour-by-hour how the wildfires spread and which areas had been evacuated.

For this purpose Google Maps turned out to be a very efficient tool. It was fast, easy to continuously update and allowed the media to present an overview whilst also offering more detailed coverage of events very locally. It enhanced the possibilities in communication besides the traditional journalistic fields of articles, photographs and radio and TV pieces.

The news service KPBS in San Diego, which broadcasts both radio and Internet news, produced a Google Map that had 1.7 million hits in the time around the wildfires. Many other players in the media had similar maps.

That was an eye opener for many American journalists. Not only just about Google Maps but also concerning interactive maps as a tool in general. “Citizens, authorities and media use this to communicate important information” wrote producer Will Femia of MSNBC on his blog, having until then only viewed Google Maps as a way of giving directions.
“This is a news event where you simply cannot make too many maps” wrote Mark Potts, another media blogger who studied the coverage intensively.

In Denmark the tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet is among those media players which, since Google’s introduction of My Maps, have experimented most with this kind of interactive maps as a journalistic tool.

At an early stage, when it still took quite some programming power, the paper produced a map of pubs and restaurants where smoking was still allowed. The information for the map was gathered from readers as new legislation prohibiting smoking in public places was introduced. In this way Ekstra Bladet created a map with unique data that could not be found elsewhere.

When Denmark experienced a week of race-related rioting in February 2008 Ekstra Bladet again managed to establish an overview of events. The fires were visualised in a Google Map as soon as police reported new incidents. As with the California wildfires, Google Maps was the tool that made it possible for the paper to show a constantly updated picture of the scale of the riots.

More than 225.000 hits on the maps were registered, most likely a Danish record for use of an interactive map as part of the coverage of a current new story. Again the paper’s information was unique. Nowhere else could users find the same comprehensive overview.

In another project the paper broke new path by sending a journalist around the world in 80 days. Equipped with a laptop, a still camera and a video camera he continuously reported his experiences. Some were published as articles but a Google map was central in the Internet presentation. The users were able to click on all the locations that the journalist had visited, watch video snippets and read about each destination.
This gave users both then and now the possibility to explore the World map. Again, a unique way of presenting a story which users cannot find elsewhere.

But Google Maps has also won a place in the daily communication of less spectacular news. The broadsheet Jyllands-Posten has used maps on a number of occasions to visualize central information in an article.
Among others there is a map alongside a story about the increase of problems relating to rats at kindergartens. Here users can see which local authorities have problems with rats, and where the kindergartens are located.
This empowers users to form their own opinion on the scale of the problem. At the same time users can also relate the story to the locality in which they live. In this light the map gives the reader unique information which would be hard to convey in a written article.

At my own employer, TV 2|Fyn (TV 2|Funen), we have similarly used maps for breaking news, for instance the impact of a motorway accident. Here speed and flexibility is paramount for the news coverage. A map can be put on our website as soon as we know where an incident has taken place. The map can then be updated with information, pictures and video gradually as we gather more information and material.

This information is of unique value to the users who might be affected by the process of clearing the road and by traffic diversions.

Denmark’s public service broadcaster, DR (Danmarks Radio), has gone even further in covering traffic news with maps. On all regional DR-websites you will find Google Maps with updated information about accidents, delays and public transport diversions.

By using interactive maps in traffic reporting, DR is able to easily improve on an existing public service offering. The traffic maps offer more than you can get from Google My Maps.

Another example is the broadsheet newspaper Politiken, which has incorporated a search function on its  ibyen.dk (”around town”) website section. The function allows you to find current films and events. The newspaper has understood how to use value-adding information on its website version using geographic presentation. When users search for cafes and restaurants they can also see the paper’s rating of the food and there are links to reference articles about the places. Once again a unique presentation of data, with the map adding more value than if it was just a listing of restaurant addresses.
The website of one of the country’s leading national television channels, TV 2|Danmark, has from the outset  used more  than just simple Google Maps by establishing one of the first big internet media projects called “1234 Dine Nyheder” (”Your News”) where users can upload video snippets, photos and articles.

The TV-station has used its website in a targeted way to gather and plot information in a campaign exposing the issue of the waste disposal.  Viewers from around the country sent examples of how waste-dumping and poor cleaning impacts both the countryside and cities. This led to a series of TV news reports.

In TV 2’s experience the newsroom may hear about incidents and events, even receive and broadcast pictures, before the news comes through more official channels such as the police authorities or news wires.

These examples show that Google Maps is the service of choice of many different media outlets when interactive maps are used. Some may argue that Google has become synonymous with Internet maps?

In all examples data has been presented as points.

But there are also other solutions and other types of data in the media.

In the run up to Danish Parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2007  TV 2|Fyn presented an Election Gateway (portal) showing personal votes for each candidate across the 208 polling stations in the broad  Funen constituency (Fyns Storkreds). Data was shown in polygons relating to the local ballot areas and visualized with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

This provided a new way of looking at the distribution of votes for local parliamentary candidates, as well as visualizing the political landscape in the Funen area. Thus the station could show where the political parties had their strongholds at election time - a unique picture of the political realities which had not been presented like this before.

The monthly magazine Penge og Privatøkonomi (Money & Private economy) also uses polygons on its detailed website. A “Local Authority Guide” gives access to a host of databases with information on tax, daycare prices, house prices and insurance prices in all Danish local authorities.

The data is presented in maps where the chosen local authority along with neighbouring authorities is visualized using colour-coding according to price levels. In this way the magazine has succeeded in presenting data with minute local detail in a simple way. Again Penge og Privatøkonomi are serving up unique information in the sense that they collate and publish facts across a range of areas.

However, there are other graphic possibilities beyond Google and Virtual Earth. One example is Politiken’s map of the future expansion of the Metro underground rail service in Copenhagen. It consists of the map itself and a number of bespoke info boxes which appear when you click on the map.

The Metro map gives you the option of enhancing parts of the map with explanatory text on what is happening in that chosen area. In this way the graphic communication is much more controlled than in a traditional Google map where there is a risk that everything starts looking the same whether it deals with data on camping sites, traffic accidents or knife murders.

It is not a given that an orthophoto or a map in American design from Google or Microsoft always is the optimal background for the message you want to convey.

Media are likely to want to be differentiated from each other in the intense competition to attract users. In this environment, the constant renewal of design and graphic expression plays a large part.

One of the means to create your own maps is by using graphic programmes such as Flash. DR, Berlingske Tidende and Ritzaus Bureau (a Danish newswire service) have all used this to produce maps. The US media use Flash to a much greater extent compared to its use by the media in Denmark. It is used particularly by the large media organisations such as the New York Times and USA Today.

In the US there is also more of a tradition for using maps in journalism, leading in some cases, to information presented in more sophisticated solutions and maps. A major reason for this is that since the early 1990s, US journalists have used GIS (Geographic Information System) as a tool in investigative journalism.
IRE, the American union of investigative reporters, offers professional GIS software from ESRI to its members at a discount, as well as assisting with practical help for analysis and maps for smaller media organisations which do not all necessarily have in-house competences.

One of the first US examples on reporting based on GIS comes from back in 1993, when the Miami Herald won the Pulitzer Price for a series of articles following a hurricane that caused the worst devastation to the city in a hundred years.
The paper’s research and maps documented that many of the worst damaged houses were not at all in the area where the hurricane had been most powerful. The reason was that many new houses were not built to withstand a hurricane. The research also exposed that many newly built houses had never been surveyed by the building authorities due to a heavy workload of having to survey up to 50 houses a day. The coverage led, amongst other things, to a set of new building regulations being introduced in the area.

Though the Miami example was produced long before interactive Internet maps were an everyday occurrence it gives a picture of the more analytical approach to maps that many US journalists have. But in the US media you can also find many examples that reflect the development in Denmark.

Here 2008 stands out as the year when the use of interactive maps by the media really broke through. Reporters and editors have created many examples of the new possibilities for geographical visualization that particularly the introduction of web 2.0 has given rise to in recent years. The use of interactive maps points in several directions when looking at Danish examples.

- Visualizing data

- Analysing data

- Gathering data from users

- Creating databases for users

Data is to be understood in broad terms. It can be anything from photos, video and text to presentation of statistical information or election voting results.

Regardless of whether the map is used for the presentation of an analysis, for interaction with users or for the visualization of information, there are some basic conditions which are common when looking at how maps can be used best in reporting.

- The map must have a clear idea. Superfluous information with no connection to the story should be omitted

- A map is also a picture. It must be immediately understandable when you look at it

- The message in a map is stronger if it is presented in connection with other media such as photo, video, sound, and text supporting and supplementing the angle

- An interactive map has more layers. Each layer has its own angle as the user clicks through the map

- Timing is a paramount factor in journalism. The map must be presented while the story is current.
- Choose your technique according to your data. If you have dynamic data needing constant updating, your solution must be easy to adjust accordingly.

I believe we are at the start of a development which will give maps a steadily growing role in communication. Till now, only a minority of Danish media are using geographical presentations of their current stories.

For instance you can use GeoRSS to distribute the daily newsflow so it can be visualized in maps. The system is an extension of the ordinary RSS format which sends a message every time new information is added to a website. The users can use the RSS reader to choose which websites they want updates from. But rather than just viewing the current headlines on a list they can also be places geographically in a map.

In the future the LBS technique may also be of more interest to the media. Technology will make it possible to distribute very local news to the mobile phones of people in a particular area. Today developers at Mozilla and other industry players are working on how to determine the location of ordinary computers which will also open new possibilities.

However, there are also some general trends in favour of increased focus on directed communication. There are several factors which can influence the process in the coming years.

Many Danish media organisations are moving towards using the Internet in a broader role. The Internet editorial teams are growing in size and new formats such as net-TV are being piloted. At the same time, the viewer and reader figures of traditional TV news and newspapers are dropping in many areas. This is not just a Danish tendency, but is also a trend in the US, where newspapers are making dramatic staffing cuts or in the worst cases, going out of business completely.
The Internet and mobile phones are likely to be the platforms that many media organisations will build on as a way of expanding their businesses and conquering new territory.
Each and every media organisation has its own tradition and history stemming from either the world of newspapers, from radio or from TV. A declared shift to new platforms can mean an all new focus and alertness to new ways of communicating via the Internet.

Meanwhile there is rapid development in the field of consumer electronics. GPS and localised information are now standards in everyday life. We have GPS in our cars, many mobiles have GPS and the next digital camera we buy will most likely also be installed with GPS technology.

Finally there is a constant renewal of Internet technology which is geographically oriented. New options and services which are free to use.

The accumulated development will in general give people an increased awareness of geographically determined information. It is obvious that the media will exploit these new possibilities and be a driver in the process in the coming years. A number of Danish reporters and editors have already notched up examples and shown how to use maps actively in communication in a range of topic areas.

The examples show furthermore, that geographical visualization in a journalistic context can add value, enabling improved understanding and insight into a subject which cannot be communicated as effectively in other ways. This acknowledgement has, in my view, been reached by a number of Danish media organisations.  Therefore, I see 2008 as the year when the media world acquired a geographical awareness which will open brand new opportunities in journalism.

About the author:
Jesper Ishoj was educated as a journalist in 1993. He has specialised in computer assisted reporting, analysis and visualization. He works at TV 2|Fyn, runs the blog GeoJournalistik.dk, and during 2009 is a guest lecturer at Danmarks Journalisthøjskole (Danish Journalism School). Jesper Ishoj is attached as media consultant in the planning of the Geoforum conference Kortdage 2009 (Map Days 2009).