GIS and Journalism
Episode #1
Hannah Dormido
Summary
In this episode of GeoChat, Brooke Hatcher interviews Hannah Dormido, a graphics reporter at The Washington Post, about the field of GIS and journalism. They discuss the role of visual journalism in news organizations, the variety of skills required for graphics reporting, and the importance of maps in storytelling. Hannah shares her experience working on a project about the Francis Scott Key Bridge accident and explains the process of data collection and collaboration in graphics reporting. She also reflects on her career path and the challenges of learning geospatial skills. Overall, the conversation highlights the intersection of journalism and geospatial technology in the news industry. In this conversation, Hannah Dormido and Brooke Hatcher discuss the importance of having a portfolio and showcasing one's skills through personal projects. They emphasize the difference between tools and skills, highlighting the value of honing in on a specific tool or software. They also explore the role of inspiration in design and creativity, with nature being a major source of inspiration for both of them. The conversation delves into the balance between personal style and work, and the importance of finding mediums for creativity that are separate from digital platforms. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the importance of embracing personal creativity and finding ways to incorporate it into work projects.
Hannah Dormido
“Never Knew I Could Dream This Big”
A Graphics Reporter and Cartographer at The Washington Post. Beyond her job title, Hannah specializes in visual journalism which encompasses various visual mediums that go beyond just maps, including 3D renders, images, and videos. As a visual journalist at the post, her job largely entails responding to the needs of the Newsroom which means her work can span from a wide range of visual projects, many of which including heavy political topics.
Recently, Hannah worked on a project involving the boat crash into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. This project aimed to provide visuals showing a change analysis of the bridge before and after the accident, its construction and the scale of the accident. As part of this effort to create a visual component to the story, a member of Hannah’s team focused on creating a map of the Baltimore port to provide visual context of the terminal layout and the traffic flow.
This is just one example of a project in which GIS and visuals were put to use to contextualize an event beyond the capacity of words. Creating these visuals allows readers of Hannah and her team’s work to be able to see at a glance the true extent of destruction and the impact that it will have on the city’s traffic and infrastructure.
For breaking news stories such as this one, the information and visuals must be quickly created and released. In Hannah’s team, everyone must quickly work together to collect the data and then create the visuals for it. In cases where multiple maps are needed, many team members need to divide and conquer to get everything done in time for publication. Oftentimes, these visuals and information change dynamically as a live story continues to develop. As put by Hannah, “The news is not going to wait for us”.
“The News is Not Going To Wait for Us "
Childhood
Beyond creating visuals, Hannah also has the talent and passion for journalism in the written form. Hannah has had a dream to be a journalist ever since she was a child. While Hannah is now working a very successful career in her field, Hannah shared that a dream like this once felt out of reach she stated, “She didn’t know it was possible to dream this big”.
Hannah grew up in a small town in the Philippines in a town where it felt her ability to dream was limited due to her means. Despite this, Hannah knew she always wanted to be a journalist, much ado to the news programs she saw on TV growing up. At first, she wanted to be a TV reporter because she spent a lot of time watching them on TV and knew the impact of their work. Her parents watched the news every night and stressed the importance of keeping up with the news which furthered her understanding of the impact of a career in journalism.
She always loved to write, but she did not know much about the world of visual mapping and data analysis beyond the maps she would consume as a child. Hannah’s early exposure to maps was through the World Almanac which her mother would buy for her every year and made sure she always had one. Hannah recalled fondly how much she loved the Almanacs her mom would buy her since they were full of beautiful images and maps of places around the world. Although her family was not able to afford more books, Hannah would borrow books from her mom’s cousin to continue to expand her knowledge on many topics, science especially.
Nature as inspiration for Hannah’s Work
I am a QGIS girlie
Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Maybe you want to launch a business.
Select A Weapon of Choicw
As Hannah’s love for writing developed, she soon shifted away from her dreams of doing TV journalism in front of the camera, and instead focused on dreams of becoming a journalist behind the scenes. Hannah’s early career comprised mostly of written journalism until she worked at The Financial Times where she was exposed to the world of GIS and visual journalism. At first cartography felt very foreign to Hannah. Eventually, with the the help of her supervisors, she became well versed in cartography and GIS skills. While Hannah recalls back to the struggle period of learning cartography, she can now confidently say that she has a large talent stack in mapping and visualization. Hannah originally learned QGIS due to it being accessible to her while she lived in Manila. To this day, it is still her tool of choice and as put by Hannah, she is a true “QGIS Girly”. While she does have an impressive talent stack, Hannah also stressed the importance of having a team where everyone has their own niches and talents. Everyone on the team can be responsible for completely different tasks to create the same story. Because of this, Hannah emphasizes the need for journalists to have a portfolio that showcases their skills and expertise.
Hannah’s career story reflects how journalism is evolving to incorporate more data-driven storytelling. Gone are the days of simple newsprint stories, and here are the days of news incorporating multiple visual mediums to be able to tell a story at a glance. With powerful GIS tools at one’s disposal, it is now possible to get news to audiences even quicker with visuals that can replace lengthy descriptions and show impact on a larger scale. By leveraging spatial data, journalists can produce more informative, engaging, and impactful news coverage.
