from: ReadWriteWeb.com:

“On the one year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, journalist Peter Aldhous created a data visualization that shows how the Carribean country’s relatively low seismic earthquake had as many fatalities as all but one earthquake over a time span of almost 40 years. The data visualization is striking but also a study in how journalists are increasingly telling stories that leverage datasets that are freely available to the public.
Peter Aldhous, San Francisco Bureau Chief for New Scientist magazine, created the interactive graphics. We asked him to explain how he created the visualizations which compare seismic activity to fatalities caused by earthquakes over the span of four decades:

“The raw data was downloaded from searches at the U.S. Geological Survey for quake magnitudes and locations and The International Disaster Database for earthquake fatality data. I manipulated the downloaded data in Excel and Access to get it in the format I needed to make the graphics – e.g. running some SQL queries in Access to get the numbers of quakes of different magnitude classes in each year for the stacked area chart drawn from the historical data.” Read more here and find raw earthquake data here…

Noam Scheiber asks this question today in The New Republic

In his article he states:

“In a wrenching dispatch yesterday, one Time magazine correspondent described how “dozens of reporters watched and filmed” as rescue teams dislodged bodies from the Hotel Montana, where a contingent of UN aid workers was trapped beneath the rubble [...]we rarely bat an eye over the redundancy of the coverage. We just chalk these things up to the cost of a vibrant news media. But in Haiti, the dozens of redundant dispatches are stressing an already perilously fragile situation, as all the journalists scrambling to get into the country chew up valuable capacity and resources. Surely there’s a better way.”

While Scheiber makes a great point in raising the question, he doesn’t touch on the dark, grim side to this question. When you have dozens & dozens of cameras swirling around rubble while the rescue workers pull out a survivor, is it for news, ratings (which unfortunately are tied to revenue), the competitive-exclusivity-on the-story, or all of the above?

What happened in Haiti is beyond horrific, it’s an international tragedy. Social media has (probably for the first time) played a more valuable role in expediting relief efforts, but Scheiber brings up some valid issues in his piece, and raises some questions the media (and it’s critics) often don’t have the courage to address. Let’s hope the rest of the media can pull an Anderson Cooper down there and lend a helping hand when duty calls…and don’t suck up the few resources that are already widely needed down there.

Heartbreaking & graphic, view them here

Adriana Huffington gives her Sunday round-up on the week in Haiti, touches on Rush Limbaugh’s attempted politicalization of the drama.
Read it here

Fox News, a “moneymaking juggernaut” according to the LA Times, had about 20 employees in Haiti by midweek, nine of them on-air personalities. However, only one of those correspondents seemed able to get into the heart of the capital, with much of the reporting coming from staging areas and the secure airport.

CNN, in contrast, succeeded much as it did five years ago, when it dominated coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami. CNN had nine correspondents and anchors and some 40 others on the ground, along with generators and equipment that allowed it to broadcast pictures far superior to the Fox News’ grainy images. Read more at the LA Times

USA Today asks

when does it become ‘exploitation’?

Photojournalism is more active then ever this week with some compelling shots of the damage in Haiti from the earthquake. It’s not only heartbreaking but it’s definitely revealing of the damage and hardship the country now faces.
The Big Picture
The NY Times
We’ll keep adding them as the tragedy unfolds.

Haiti’s in a nightmarish place right now, and it’s more or less being reported via Tweets & Citizen Journalism