In case you didn’t know, Mexico’s in the middle of something like a civil war. President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug traffickers in early 2007. 6,836 people have died in drug-related violence since then. 640 of them died in Northern Baja (listen up San Diegans!).
Why am I talking about this here? Because I just discovered an admirable piece of Internet journalism at the LA Times called Mexico Under Siege. Pay attention to the animated map of Mexico as the page loads. It’s too bad you can’t replay it or jog through it.
Worth noting:
- Above average information graphics
- A useful interactive map
- Tons of pictures and videos
- Excellent presentation of related reporting (includes articles, videos, and other media—sortable by date, byline, dateline, taxonomy, and media)
There are enough UI hang-ups to keep this thing from winning any awards, but kudos to the LA Times for effectively combining reporting, photography, and data to tell a very compelling (and harrowing) story. Hopefully their bankruptcy reorganizing will shift some more power to their interactive whizzes.
Browse more LA Times data projects at projects.latimes.com
Comments
KPBS just launched a new website related to the violence in San Diego and Tijuana. The map is very comprehensive.
http://www.kpbs.org/borderbattle
Thanks Jeff! Much closer to home and amazingly comprehensive. I wonder if Nathan Gibbs is behind some of that.
BTW, Writing this post reminded me of Adrian Holovaty and led me to his article entitled A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change. Worth a read.
Yeah, Nathan & Joe, probably.
I did edit one video, but that was about it. Credit definitely goes to a team of about eight people who did the reporting, video and web production.
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