Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Google Maps, Crime, and Information Design

Adrian Holovaty's ChicagoCrime.org has won him the Grand Prize Batten Award for “setting a new standard for interactive journalism.” The award is given out each year by the Institute for Interactive Journalism. In an innovative use of information design, the ChicagoCrime mashes and displays public Chicago crime databases with Google mapping. One can search by type of crime, street and neighborhood where crimes took place, date of crime, and pinpoint the location on a satellite map.

The Batten Award judges commented: "It is one journalist's ability to see all the pieces and put them together, but every city should provide this as a public service."

Adrian has also designed a publishing system for Lawrence Journal-World to enable Google Maps within news stories.

You can view the other winners and notable entries at j-lab.org.

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