Interview with an Anonymous Graphics Reporter

A conversation with a graphics reporter for a widely circulated American newspaper revealed the unique nature of the role, work, and ethics of graphics reporting. Operating under intense deadlines, graphics reporters must carefully balance the newsroom’s need for speed and pressure for performance with the cartographer’s meticulous attention to detail and iterative mapmaking process. Collaboration between the news reporter, graphics reporter, graphics editor, and, ultimately, the reader, can both facilitate and hinder the graphics report’s work. Knowing that many people, some with the power to make decisions with serious consequences, will read their maps, graphics reporters operate under pressures that, while not unknown to other mapmakers, do not affect them as frequently. Guiding their decisions and actions in this high-stakes, high-pressure environment are the ethics of both journalism and cartography, which don’t always converge.