Issue link: https://resources.esri.ca/i/734439
Award-winning reporter takes investigative journalism to the next level with mapping and analysis technology 1 Esri Canada | Getting to the heart of the story with GIS Challenge Data journalism, otherwise known as computer assisted reporting, has significantly grown in popularity over the last two decades. The practice involves collecting, filtering and analyzing large amounts of information from databases and spreadsheets as a foundation to produce and publish news stories. The recent explosion of online data poses a unique opportunity as well as a challenge for today's data journalist who must consolidate information from a wide range of sources and formats. In addition to the open data movement, massive amounts of user generated content known as "big data" also continues to gain traction. As such, traditional systems for analyzing information can prove limiting. Many data analysis tools offer basic reporting functionality without the ability to view data in a geographic context. Other tools might offer limited analysis capabilities or an inability to integrate data from various formats. Relying on a database to comb through millions of records in search of patterns can severely limit a journalist's ability to reveal insights from large datasets. Recognizing these limitations, Ottawa Citizen Reporter Glen McGregor turned to Esri's ArcGIS technology to effectively integrate, map and analyze data in support of investigative reporting. Today's journalists operate in an extremely fast paced world. They must be able to not only synthesize unprecedented amounts of information in record time to get their stories out first, but also communicate this information in a manner that can be understood quickly, accurately and fully. To accomplish this, award-winning journalist Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen leverages a digital mapping and analysis technology that makes it possible to integrate, map and analyze vast amounts of information. This technology reveals visual trends and patterns in the data that may otherwise go unnoticed, helping to quickly convey the heart of the story.