San Diego residents rip TV fire maps
Cory Bergman October 26th, 2007
Anyone who’s worked in local TV news knows that tracking a fire’s progress on a map is a very difficult proposition. First, fires are fickle. Second, the information is usually not readily available. Now multiply this by a bunch of fires with massive evacuations and 24/7 live coverage, and maintaining accurate fire maps is extremely difficult.
But San Diego is a great case study: how maps can be more important than live aerials, and how the web can help. Here’s what one person had to say about the TV coverage there: “My home may be on fire. I cannot get through on 211 (fire information line). After trying several websites, not one of them would load…. I resorted to calling the newsroom of EACH TV outlet. I pleaded with them to put up a map. I saw a freeway map depicting little flames at several points…. I explained that while talking heads in front of ferocious flames made for great television, what the public needed was INFORMATION…. Where were the maps? Please tell me that you didn’t unload $750,000 for a graphics system that can’t do maps!… Finally, after two or three days, we saw newsreaders holding up Thomas Brothers guides, and pointing with their fingers to affected areas.”
In this story, maps are more important than live chopper aerials. The scale of the fires was simply too extreme for chopper aerials to provide meaningful information. But all the stations went out of their way to pool chopper resources. One San Diego resident suggests that TV stations pool their map resources. “Create a ‘war room’ with MAPS. Keep the maps up-to-date as you can: active fire lines, firefighting unit deployment, evacuation areas, wind directions and speeds. SHOW THE MAPS.”
What a great idea. The LA Times and KPBS did just that online by creating Google Maps that could be distributed anywhere. (Google even highlighted both of them on its main Maps page.) Pooling this is easy since you could have multiple contributors coordinating updates on a single Google map. Then you display the map live, on the air, zooming from fire to fire, street to street. (Google has TV licensing agreements, but I’m sure in this case Google wouldn’t have minded if San Diego stations put them on the air without an agreement.) Here at KING, we have a deal to use Microsoft’s Live Maps on our air.
In short, maps and the visual depiction of data on TV is a critical component of breaking news coverage, and it’s best organized if the same mapping can be ported to the web and updated automatically. Many times, it’s even more important than good video.
7 Comments Add your own
1. Anonymous | October 26th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Yes, in extreme situations, information may be an important component of your television news product.
2. adm | October 26th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
despite the anonymous jibe above, this is an extremely good point. as a news consumer, i suggest news directors get familiar with online mapping utilities now so they are not trying to figure them out in the midst of a crisis. google has some extremely good tools now that do not even require programing, and the resulting maps can be embedded on any web page.
3. Brink | October 26th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
(Google has TV licensing agreements, but I’m sure in this case Google wouldn’t have minded if San Diego stations put them on the air without an agreement.)
Are you nuts?
Just violate the law becaue it’s more expedient to do so?
In what world do you live?
4. aidian | October 27th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Just exercise your fair use rights because it’s a disaster of biblical proportions.
5. Anonymous | October 27th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Brink, I’m pretty sure this falls under the “we dare you to sue us for not withholding your lifesaving information from the public” clause.
6. discreet_chaos | October 27th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
A Google map would not be lifesaving informaton to someone that isn’t in the fire zone, as was the case with the person cited in the post. They had already evacuated, so all a map would do is tell them where the fire had been.
With that said, if multiple stations were to pool their resources as Cory suggested, one would think that at least one of the stations would have the proper license. And, it all may be a question with experince with disasters because though they have earthquakes in So Cal, they aren’t an ongoing event which can be mapped with doppler, so a different kind of approach is probably needed.
7. Danny Buelna | November 3rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Maps can be easily kept up to date using the right format
without using Google, Microsoft or Mapquest.
By creating small detailed area maps, in a PDF file, maps can be printed and viewed by the web user. These web maps can be maintained and changed by the minute if neccesary. The only thing lacking is motivation to do it in a emergency situation.
Danny Buelna
San Diego Metro Publishing
Danny Buelna
San Diego Metro Publishing
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