Working the patch, an age-old skill in journalism. You might as a reporter know your patch – but how many people know you are their patch reporter? Are you tucked away on page2 in a little box with a list of other names?
We’ve re-introduced patch reporting for Cardiff and South Wales at WalesOnline and I created the map above to show where our reporters cover. The great thing about a google map is if people aren’t sure they can find their road, click, and the friendly face of their local reporter pops up. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve got back another stack of FOI requests. In Wales we have four police forces to FOI and 22 local authorities. As well as data from FOI requests there’s plenty of data pumped constantly out of StatsWales from the Assembly Government and council’s even release data sometimes as well. We get masses of data back all the time, but how much of it sees the light of day?
Working with Josie Ensor, who is on secondment from the Telegraph at Media Wales, we decided to do some cool stuff with a sample of the data that comes out of StatsWales using the brilliant, and free, Open Heat Map. The first set, how Welsh identity varies across the nation and the second, how Welsh-language use has changed over time. Read the rest of this entry »
Reporting on local councils can be a dry business, propping open your eyes and sinking yet another coffee during an Economic & Culture Scrutiny Committee is not the most exciting part of being a reporter – but it’s necessary. Journalists need to be holding local council’s to account and being at planning, licensing and other meetings is part of the job.
However, the stories about a new block of flats or a new air quality management area aren’t always the most exciting. So, how do you spice them up a little? The web allows us to quickly and easily add maps into our stories to give a sense of scale for readers. Read the rest of this entry »
Stumbled across this, mindyourstreet.com – which produces crime mash-ups. This is the state of Preston, Lancashire where I live (the area I’ve just moved to has a -444 difference from 2004 to 2007, whoop!).
But this is an excellent development and use of data. Be interesting to see if the local media pick-up on this and use it to provide background for crime stories. If I was a crime correspondent I’d be lapping it up – especially as it’s a Google map so can be easily embedded anywhere.
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