Maps and Tools for ProPublica Reporting Network

The map below shows you where the 1,200 citizen journalists of the ProPublica Reporting Network live. As you can see, our members are geographically dispersed throughout almost all 50 states. Two organizations working with ProPublica to track the stimulus, the Takeaway and WNYC, are here in New York, which is one reason why the city’s five boroughs are so well represented.

But a map can only do so much. Over the next two months we will roll out new tools—including a social networking platform that will make it easy for members to meet others in their cities and states and to organize around shared interests. I’m also open to using tools developed by other organizations, such as the Sunlight Foundation‘s Transparency Corps. What tools do you want? What tools do you got? :) E-mail me at amanda@propublica.org or list your ideas in the comment thread below.

In the meantime, just use your own Facebook and MySpace profiles, your blog or Flickr account, even YouTube to chronicle stimulus developments in your area.

Include a version of the Reporting Network graphic, use the tag “PPRN” when possible, and e-mail me where I can find you.

Here are some examples.

* Check out this blog: One of our PPRN members is covering a parking lot expansion at Eltingville Transit Center’s park-and-ride on Staten Island. One hundred sixty parking spots will be added to the facility’s existing 225 spaces. It’s a $3 million project receiving $2.6 million in stimulus money. That amounts to $18,750 a parking space, according to our PPRN member. Scroll down through her posts and you’ll see updates on when contracts will be awarded and recent news coverage about the project.

Setting up this blog was simple. Blogger is a free service provided by Google, and it takes only minutes to get your own url and blog.

* Several local reporters have also joined our Reporting Network, and they’re using our assignments as guides for reporting on the stimulus locally. C. Duncan Pardo, the editor of the Raleigh Public Record, set up a page where he lists details about stimulus projects in Wake County, N.C.

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