Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Murder map

My plan this morning was to check out the hometown coverage of last night's NBA Championship game on Boston.com. Instead, I read a story about the gang-related shooting of a 6-month-old baby in Mattapan, Ma.

That led me to the Globe's virtual crime map labeled "Homicides in Boston during 2008."

As a former cops reporter for the Ledger-Enquirer I think the murder map is a great resource for the online audience. Morbid as it may be, it's important for residents to be aware of what's going on in their city and where.

Within the McClatchy Company the Fresno Bee was the first newspaper to offer the map. The Ledger-Enquirer toyed with the idea of creating one for the Chattahoochee Valley (especially during last summer's spate of homicides) but the peeps in the ad department weren't too siked about selling advertisements for it.

Kudos to those newspapers that have pulled it together.

xoxoL

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