We’re far behind the times when journalists had to report news live on the radio, with their voices being the only tool. Nowadays, we’ve got a plethora of digital aids that help us make news more accessible, engaging, and clear to the audience. The topic is really broad, with graphics, animations, and simulations being just the tip of the iceberg, but we don’t want to focus on them all. Instead, in this article, we tackle the benefits of mapping for journalism—using maps to create engaging, captivating, and compelling news reports. Did we grab your attention? Then read on!

Table of contents

What is mapping?

Mapping is the process of gathering and organizing geographically-referenced data into visual representations such as maps, diagrams, and graphs. It allows journalists to quickly and accurately visualize data which gives them a better understanding of the information they’re working with.

Moreover, using solutions like social mapping apps helps reporters crowdsource data more effectively to tell compelling stories and show how things change over time.

Let’s discuss the most noteworthy benefits of mapping for journalists.

The 3 Top Benefits of Mapping for Journalism?

What are the benefits of mapping for journalism, and why is it worth incorporating it into everyday work? Maps can help both you as a journalist and your audience. Let’s look at all the most important benefits (and applications!).

Analyzing Data to Build More Accurate Reports or Locate Trends

Firstly, maps benefit journalists by placing data in a context. By visualizing smaller reports or intel from your informants, you get a better overview of what’s happening and might see relationships between different pieces of data that you wouldn’t spot otherwise. How can you use that for your benefit in journalism?

  • Uncovering hidden trends—mapping tools can be used to crowdsource information and uncover hidden trends that would otherwise remain unseen. By looking at data and information presented in an easy-to-understand format, you can quickly identify various patterns or correlations and make use of them.
  • Making data more accessible—you can also use maps to make data more accessible by visualizing it in a geographical context that every recipient knows. This is beneficial both internally (to present new material ideas to your editor) and externally to make more complex reports easier to comprehend for your audience.

Ukraine News Map

Building Engagement

You can also use maps to build higher audience engagement. This works in multiple ways, for instance by:

  • Increasing story impact—you can display data visually to increase the impact of your stories, allowing readers to make a real-life connection to the events described via the location pins.
  • Illustrating ideas—you can also build engagement by illustrating complex, often abstract ideas via maps; take global warming—why don’t you showcase the news via a map with average temperatures (compared to those 10, 25, or 50 years ago)?
  • Visualizing data—finally, just turning your information into visual storytelling, which is much more captivating than traditional news reports.

Map for Vegan Community

Reporting News Dynamically, in Real-Time

Finally, the third main benefit of mapping for journalists involves the possibility of making your news reports more dynamic. This works especially well with large news feeds. For instance, you can:

  • Create conflict maps—detailed maps about wars, which either focus on a specific conflict (like our Ukraine Map) or worldwide maps where you report all geopolitical incidents to keep the users up to date. You can also use such maps to create short daily reports in other channels, for instance on TikTok.
  • Build fully-mapped news feeds—what about other breaking news stories? You can create a detailed map with all the crucial news reported in real time. In YouMap, you can do this by adding a post where you post all the crucial information, whether it’s a full story or a short summary with a link to your full article. You can also add photos and videos to keep your map complete!
  • Visualizing elections—there’s an election in one of the countries you’re covering? You can use maps to provide detailed, geo-locked information about polls and final results to give users the information in a more digestible format.
  • Gathering information—even the best map will only be as good as the information you have. That’s why you first need to have intel on the latest breaking news in different locations. For this, you can set up a separate, public map where everybody can add posts regarding important events around them. This should already attract more readers, + you will have firsthand information that will let you be the first to report local news!

Where to start?

If you’re a journalist who wants to enjoy the vast array of benefits of mapping, you should definitely check out YouMap.

This intuitive and easy-to-use social mapping app is a great aid for all professional reporters who strive to tell stories in a powerful and impactful way. If you want to find a unique source of information, this free iOS application will help you mark your presence in the journalistic world. We’ve already shown you the Ukraine Map, but that’s just one of the opportunities—you should try YouMap yourself to discover all the benefits it can bring to you as a journalist and experiment with the functions. Who knows, maybe instead of reporting news, you’ll use it for communication and coverage organization with your co-reporters?

🗺️Download YouMap🗺️

The takeaway

What are the benefits of mapping for journalism? Maps provide you with a plethora of new opportunities to display, report, and collect information about the latest news. They might also be helpful in organizing news coverage helping you coordinate with other reporters. The more engaging and visually captivating the news, the broader audience you’ll gather around your portal, so you should definitely try out social mapping apps and discover how they can benefit you specifically, taking into account the details of your work. What are you waiting for? Get started now!

Want to learn more? Check out: What is a social map?