Map Hawk

New York Times  bubble map  of Covid-19 is city by city, which notes state and local health agencies, hospitals, as well as the CDC as sources. New York Times  also  published an article showing, with maps , how the #Coronavirus spread from Wuhan to the rest of China and beyond. Washington Post  has both U.S.and global maps that are current but use Johns Hopkins data. Seattle Times  has a page with a dashboard of data by county. Politico  has a basic map but the state-by-state charts of Covid-19 testing are useful. Bloomberg News’ geospatial team is doing an excellent job of showing the  distribution of the spread globally . Follow  Bobby Shackleton  on LinkedIn as he is publishing maps for Bloomberg daily. US News and World Report  has  published   a map  on the vulnerability of cities based on demographic characteristics.

If you are interested in a regional understanding of how the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives is going with respect to the debt crisis, the New York Times is mapping the votes by house member. The Times provides a list of recent bills debated by the House and selecting any of them will display a map by district of how the votes were cast.

The session for news media at the EsriUC was easy to miss because it was on Sunday associated with the Business Summit. But it's importance is tied to how geospatial information and technology enters an era of mainstream adoption. Two excellent presentations focused on not only how maps bring context to stories but when maps "serve as the central vehicle to create a narrative," as described by Roberto Suro, professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Managing Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab. Suro asked, "How do we recover the sense of narrative in an era of data overload? How, as a content creator, do we reestablish the authority of a story teller." Suro discussed where maps and visualization can foster a different journalistic technique. "What do you have to have to make a map tell a story? You have to start with the centrality of place. The "where" is the focal po...

Looking for camaraderie and perhaps quaffing a few brews during the FIFA World Cup matches? You better know which way the local patrons are leaning before sending out a "whoop" and "holler" during a game. Well now the New York Times can help you find just the right establishment with an interactive map that shows you the local allegiances. Jack Dempsey's on West 33rd is obviously a U.S. hang out but Barolo's on West Broadway is going for the Italians. The Time's map shows that  Plein Sud, also on West Broadway, has both French and U.S. leanings. Would you like American or French fries with that burger?

The New York Times has published a map of the fall senate, house and gubernatorial races from around the U.S. The interesting thing this time around will be what each publication has learned since the 2008 elections in using technology to display information geospatially. Flash technology was certainly preferred last time. My guess is we'll see lots of Flash and Flex this time around. The biggest challenge? Making sure each publication draws the House Congressional district boundaries correctly. What a nightmare! Just looking at the irregular shapes of each district is perplexing. Makes you wonder about the political "fist fights" that must arise out of gerrymandering these boundaries. Good luck!