Playing Around With Knightlab’s Storymap
So I decided to start playing around with the Knightlab options we can use in stories.
There are quite a few ways to integrate these, but I feel like a lot of those approaches would be lacking in some way.
As I get more original content, I do realize there’s going to be a LOT I can do. However, as we spoke about in class, just because you can do a lot doesn’t exactly mean you should.
Here’s a direct link, and I’ve embedded it in case you find it easier to use since I can’t edit the dimensions Medium sets for its embeds.
When readers look at a story they want to get the information quickly. This is obvious, but as a writer, you really want to tell a story. However, just because you tell a story with seventeen great graphs doesn’t mean people are going to look at all seventeen. They want the best to be first.
Sure, It’s important to think about writing as an art. However, it’s not all writing is. It’s a way of conveying information. I run into this conundrum a lot where I want to do all these things with my writing to make it good. However, in that, I’m making my writing good for me in order for me to feel proud of it.
Whether I like it or not, readers probably don’t care whether I’m proud of the reporting or not. They might care somewhat, but many of them only care only if it’s good, accessible, concise, and focused.
So, taking all that into account, I decided to use the storymap in order to point out a few closures (as well as possible closures) of nursing homes across the state. I also linked to coverage of these stories in case people want to know more about them.
My focus was on a string of 5 closures, which affected a few nursing homes and a large number of people in these homes.
I didn’t know some nursing homes in Mass were in the process of closing or could close as early as next month, so this does give me some more ideas for stories and inspiration for avenues to explore my final project.
