Case Study: The Detroit News reveals Detroit’s arson epidemic with Caspio

Data Visualization Reveals Extent of Detroit’s Arson Epidemic

The Detroit News faced the challenge of uncovering and explaining Detroit’s arson epidemic in a way readers could explore themselves. To do that, the newsroom spent three months gathering FOIA data from multiple sources and turned to Caspio to help build a searchable, interactive online database of roughly 9,000 suspicious fires with mapping and visualization features.

Using Caspio’s database and map mashup tools, The Detroit News created a ZIP-code-based heat map with Google Maps, custom fire pins, and drill-down incident details. The result was a public-facing data visualization that let readers search by neighborhood and see arson patterns and causes, giving the paper a more dynamic reporting tool than a static graphic and revealing the extent of the problem across the city.

The Detroit News

Tom Gromak

Director of Digital Innovation