Part two: Heartbreak of U.S. layoffs told through graphics

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on April 13, 2008
in Blog
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smith.jpg

Last week we shared the emotional photo documentary from Martin Gee of the San Jose Mercury News. Visual journalism is a powerful tool for illustrating the impact and scope of the downsizing that has been happening in U.S. newsrooms.

From photos to graphics map mashups
Erica Smith is a journalist and multimedia designer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and has been teaching herself Web programming skills as she has transitioned into her new newsroom roles. One of her projects has been a Google map mashup where she plots U.S. newspaper layoff announcements.

She documents at her Paper cuts blog that more than 1,711 jobs have been slashed in 2008 and more than 2,185 in 2007.

There is more than just the map here; the data she collects is richly annotated as includes monthly summaries that list the the paper, the number of positions lost and the link to the new story where the job cuts were announced.

For example her tally from November 2007:



The different colored balloons on the interactive map indicate how many positions were eliminated with red being the highest number - over 100 in one action.




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1 Response to “Part two: Heartbreak of U.S. layoffs told through graphics”

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  1. 1 Robert Stocker
    April 14, 2008 at 7:20 am

    As a journalism student following this news, it is scary to see all these layoffs. A student can’t help but wonder why should I continue if this is the future.

    I wondering what is the reason for so many layoffs all across the country? Is it because so many people are getting their news from the web now? It seems that everyone wants to blame the web but that is to simple of an answer.

    It is going to be interesting to see how this is all going to shake out in the end.

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