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JOURNALISTIC MAPPING : BACKGROUND REQUIREMENTS La cartographie journalistique : formation préalable Paul J. PUGLIESE Time Magazine / New York, N. Y. / U.S.A. ABSTRACT Maps in newspapers, magazines and on TV have a role to inform readers or viewers of events and places in the news. There are two important requirements for people who create maps for journalistic publications : a proper background in cartography and a good background in design. Furthermore, cartography teaching in universities and colleges should be open to graphic design for improving the artistic feature of maps. RÉSUMÉ Les cartes qui illustrent les articles de journaux et de magazines ainsi que celles des bulletins télévisés ont pour but d’informer les lecteurs ou les spectateurs sur les événements d’actualité et leur localisation. Deux exigences sont requises pour les concepteurs de cartes dans les médias : une formation appropriée en cartographie et une formation adéquate en « design ». Ajoutons que l’ enseignement de la cartographie dans les universités et les colleges devrait s’ ouvrir aux possibilités offertes par le « design » afin d’améliorer le côté artistique des cartes. Maps appear in many formats. Now more than ever they are being used to illustrate magazine and newspaper articles as well as television news shows. Their main function is to inform the reader or viewer of events and places in the news. These maps are seen by many people, over 32 million each week in Time Magazine alone. We should be preparing our students to be better equipped for a successful career in the field of Journalistic Mapping. There are two important requirements for the people who create maps for journalistic publications. The first is that the map makers have a proper background in cartography, and the second is that they have a background in design. Ideally a cartographer is trained in all aspects of cartography, but in general this doesn’t seem to be the case. What seems to happen in most publications is that an artist with little or no cartographic training is called in to draw the maps. We are all familiar with this type of graphic. How many times have we seen : distribution information shown on a nonequal area projection (usually a Mercator) ; simplification of shorelines in such a way that the Hudson Bay can become Lake Hudson ; the use of unconventional terrain rendering the Rocky Valley ; the poor use of color, red battle symbols on a dark orange background, making it impossible for the reader to figure out what’s going on ; the absence of scale ; using inappropriate projections only mislead the reader. In fact, in many cases the reader is being provided with misinformation. Of course the experienced cartographer without a design background might produce cartographicly correct maps, however they may not catch the reader’s attention or hold his interest. What can be done to correct the problem in present day journalistic mapping ? Colleges and universities that teach cartography should be made aware that their students need to incorporate design skills in their maps and appropriate design courses must be provided. Some places of learning do provide this sort of curriculum but not enough when compared to the amount of cartographic programs available. In my experience I have found that I am more likely (certainly not the case all of the time) to train a cartographer by taking a graphic art student and teaching him cartography than to take a student of cartography and train him in graphics. The fact that cartography is basically thought of as a science, and graphics as a creative art probably has something to do with my success rate. Regrettably many students of cartography rarely prepare a map for publication outside of the classroom. Proper cartographic training is an important concern of mine. I am presently expanding a workshop program that I’ve been conducting at East Carolina University. Time Magazine has cooperated with 63 me in giving cash awards for excellence in journalistic mapping. These awards have been presented for the last nine years at the annual ACSM meeting. This will be the first year that a similar award will be presented at the Canadian Cartographic Association meeting. 64 ...

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