Manchester Gun Murders Mapped

The Manchester Evening News (MEN) is using an interactive map to show shooting deaths from the past eight years.

Entitled “How Many More?”, the special feature includes a Google map showing the locations of gun fatalities in the Greater Manchester area since 1999.

Surrounding the map are photographs of the victims and visitors to the site can use these to locate the scenes of crime and read stories about the murders from the MEN archives.

In addition, users can access archive reports on the killings from other news providers such as the BBC.

The feature is a classic example of journalists using multimedia storytelling to great effect and particularly impressive is its navigability and linking to other sites.

And in a time when stickiness seems to be becoming something of a buzzword among web editors, special reports such as this are an excellent way to encourage visitors to delve into the archives and spend longer on the site.

Things don’t stop there either as the MEN is also planning to use an interactive Google map to show the city’s congestion hotspots.

Holdthefrontpage.co.uk reports that the website is planning to encourage users to provide information to produce the map, which will then form the basis of a dossier to demand improvements to Manchester’s roads.