Case Studies

Solution In 2008, Mr. McGregor began to integrate Esri's ArcGIS into his workflow alongside traditional news gathering techniques. The technology makes it possible to intersect a large amount of data from diverse sources, identify and examine relationships and visualize information in the form of a dynamic digital map. Some of the ways he has used ArcGIS for his pieces include the following: • To assist with a recent article that explores revisions to the Navigable Waters Protection Act which seek to remove federal protection from much of the country's waterways. He merged electoral districts with thousands of shorelines to determine the percentage of protected waterways that fall within each electoral district. This data was then combined with election results from 2011 to calculate the breakdown by MP parties. • To determine how proposed shifts in electoral boundaries might affect polling stations across the country, and subsequently, election results. He combined data provided by Elections Canada with existing and proposed boundaries to assess the potential impact. • To examine the dispersal of over 2.7 million parking tickets issued throughout Ottawa. By representing the data through intuitive heat maps, cluster analysis revealed that parking tickets are heavily concentrated in and around hospital zones. • To analyze local community issues. For example, he merged data related to recreational facilities with census tract data to determine accessibility to facilities based on neighbourhood income levels. Getting to the heart of the story with GIS | Esri Canada 2 " Maps are only as meaningful as the data behind them. GIS provides the ability to extract meaning from enormous amounts of information both quickly and accurately. As a result, it serves as a valuable springboard for stories that would simply be impossible to pursue without the use of this technology." Glen McGregor Ottawa Citizen Benefits ArcGIS allows today's journalist to tap into a world of available data by providing a platform to summarize, analyze and map large volumes of information. This includes numerical spreadsheet data, crowdsourced data and online information that can be readily obtained from Web sites. The ability to integrate and map this information reveals discreet patterns and correlations that can serve as a source for credible, fact-based stories. Empowering news reporting with data-driven evidence helps to foster trust among an informed readership while serving as a catalyst for public debate. Communicating this information through an intuitive, dynamic map view also makes it possible to draw meaningful conclusions in a matter of minutes while visually determining the relationship between a specific phenomenon and its geographic location. ArcGIS has served as a springboard for many of Mr. McGregor's investigative pieces including an award winning article that explored the allocation of federal stimulus dollars among political ridings under the Building Canada infrastructure program. ArcGIS was used to match over 6,000 Building Canada projects from the actionplan.gc.ca Web site with expenditures from federal government sources. The article provided the first and only independent large-scale look at federal stimulus spending in Canada and was recognized in 2009 by a Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) award. Using ArcGIS and electoral district data, this map explores the correlation between political party strong holds and proposed changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Additionally, this maps easily depicts the disproportionate protection of lakes associated with high profile owner/high value shoreline properties.

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