Case StudiesLearn how others are using GIS software solutions to see results for their challenging business needs.
The Associated Press (AP) Graphics Department uses MapStudio and ArcView to create most of its news maps, increasing the production and quality of the maps it distributes to its hundreds of newspaper members. On election night 2000, AP Graphics updated maps of results for the presidential and congressional races up to 11 times during the night. Such fast, accurate access would not have been possible without these tools. AP uploaded Census 2000 data into MapStudio for Media for easy access by staff and members. As a result, AP members could create census maps on the fly. Perhaps most important, the staff now has access to upto- date maps of every part of the world when news breaks. No longer is there a rush to find reference material to trace a basic locator map. This can be completed in minutes so the staff can move on to the more contextual pieces. MapStudio allows them to keep the simple things simple and use the scarce resources of the newsroom in smart ways. USA Today used ArcIMS to let Web users explore the first wave of Census 2000 data in March 2001 right down to their own neighborhoods. The Census data files were processed, often within an hour of release, using ArcView and SAS® data analysis software. SAS produced data files that snapped into templates of the maps. This let USA Today generate a dozen different files for black-and-white maps in its newspaper and color maps on its USATODAY.com Web site. These files were then fed to ArcIMS for distribution. Web users entered USA Today's Census package through a Macromedia® FlashT map of the nation that led to county-level Flash maps for each state showing its 1990 population change, population center, density, diversity, and presence of children. When users clicked drop-down lists of cities and counties in each state's Flash shell, they were handed off to ArcIMS. It let them browse several themes-density, diversity, and population change-at several geographical levels down to census tracts. It also let them pop up the underlying data. Good planning and good use of ArcView and ArcIMS allowed USA Today to offer the most complete coverage of the census data of any national medium. Tidepool, covering the Pacific rain forest coast, is an online news service that gleans GIS information from a sister site called Inforain. Inforain is a one-stop resource for data layers, online mapping, and prebuilt maps and analysis of this area. Tidepool helps local newspapers illustrate news stories with GIS maps. Tidepool encourages newspapers to use GIS as a reporting tool to generate story ideas and drive the questions journalists ask. Tidepool adds context and understanding to the day's headlines by linking relevant Inforain GIS maps to news stories. "This is where we think the real power of GIS lies for reporters in the future," said Ed Hunt, Tidepool's editor. "As GIS tools become more accessible and easier to use, we think more journalists are going to take GIS analysis into their own hands-asking their own questions of data-making it a tool of their reporting as much as the computer and the telephone." |
