Low-income residents less likely to appear for jury duty

Hurst Laviana of The Wichita Eagle used local court records to show that "less than half of the Sedgwick County residents summoned report to the courthouse in any given week. And low-income residents — many of them minorities — are far less likely to report for jury duty than residents of white middle-class neighborhoods." Poor address-keeping is a major cause for why some potential jurors either never get their notices or get them too late. The paper combined the juror information with Census data using mapping software.

Jo Craven McGinty at The New York Times reported this weekend that hate crimes in the city are down 44 percent between 2000 and 2004. The crimes are broken down in graphics and maps. A member of New York's hate crimes unit credits people "just behaving better" in the city in the wake of a hate crime law put on the books in 2000.

Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette investigates a coal company, which has built and begun to build silos outside the companies permit area, within 300 feet of a school. The Gazette used color overlays of hard-copy mine maps produced by a local blueprint shop, so that maps dating back to 1982 could be easily compared to more recent digital mine maps. The paper followed up on Sunday, with a piece on the maps and data used in the investigation, and how complaints were ignored and boundary advances missed.

Jim Miller and Ben Goad of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise use mapping software to plot thousands of new home permits issued since the 2003 Southern California fires and then compared the points to state maps showing fire threat. "In the 18 months after the firestorms of 2003, Inland cities and counties issued permits for more than 2,500 homes in areas the state identifies as facing 'very high' or 'extreme' fire danger." (Editor's note: IRE and NICAR offer resources for covering wildfires)

John McCarthy of the Florida Today analyzed and mapped data from the Brevard County Property Appraiser's database to report on growth and development in Brevard County, Fla. McCarthy found that land developers in the county "plan to turn agricultural land in the far reaches of the county into upscale housing developments ..." The project includes a sidebar by Jeff Schweers about how the public can have its say on rezoning and other issues and the online version of the project includes a flyover three-dimensional map, produced by online enhancement coordinator Lee Nessel Daszuta. Assistant Managing Editor Matt Reed oversaw the project and Graphic Artist Tim Standish produced a map for the print edition based on a map McCarthy created with Arcview 9.

Bob Williams and Stephen Henn of the Center for Public Integrity investigate lobbyists who sit on the governing boards of nonprofits. Lobbyists are not supposed to pay for congressional travel, but the investigation found "that a favored way to evade the prohibition on picking up the tab is to do so through charitable non-profits..." The investigation includes a map detailing the most popular congressional junket locations, a list of the top companies and lobbying firms, and a summary of their findings.

William M. Hartnett of The Palm Beach Post analyzed ten years' of housing sales for Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties, finding that median home prices have jumped dramatically during that period. In a special section published Sunday, the paper mapped neighborhoods according to median sale value and reported that water access costs more than it ever did. A number of other maps and photos also illustrate the data, and the paper provided an explainer of its work. Hartnett credited similar work by the St. Petersburg Times last year for inspiring the project.

Lee Davidson of The Deseret Morning News used federal data to review deficient bridges in Utah. "Federal data, based on state inspections, show that 256 bridges in Utah were considered structurally deficient in 2004. Another 250 were functionally obsolete." Despite the high number of deficiencies, Utah's bridges are rated Ninth best among states, federal data shows.

Andrew Conte and Mark Houser of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review analyzed and mapped campaign contributions for the Pittsburgh mayoral race. They found that "nearly two-thirds of the $1.2 million raised by front-runner Bob O'Connor ... has come from outside the city." A lot of O'Conner's contributions were found to have come in large chunks. The story also features a graphic detailing the analysis.

Jamie Smith Hopkins of The (Baltimore) Sun used data on home sales to find "clear signs that proximity to D.C. is driving the boom in Baltimore and its five surrounding counties, over and above what extraordinarily low mortgage interest rates have achieved nationwide. This region's fastest appreciation came in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, which border the traditional edge of Washington's reach. Prices there jumped 75 percent combined during the past five years - compared with 41 percent nationally. Together, the average price in those counties rose to about $340,000 last year." The paper included a searchable database of area home sales from 1999 to 2004 and several charts detailing the growth in home prices.