Reuters’ series of reports on Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. The reports include several data-driven investigations.
One of them was a companion piece to “The Davao Boys,” which revealed that many members of an antidrug police squad at a police station in Quezon City in Metro Manila (“Station 6”), which recorded the most number of drug-related killings, came Duterte’s hometown in Davao City in southern Philippines. Hence, the title, “The Davao Boys.”
The package (http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/PHILIPPINES-DRUGS/01006028044/index.html) of data visualizations consists of the following (in the order they appear), all of which were well executed and effective in telling different aspects of the story:
· A locator map showing the six districts under the jurisdiction of Station 6
· A dot distribution map that indicated where the killings occurred in Quezon City, with each circle marking a deadly incident.
· A stacked bar showing the total number of killings to the entire City and comparing the 108 that Station 6 accounted for
· Another dot distribution map, this time grouping the killings by police stations and their locations
· A column bar comparing that compared the number of death vis-à-vis the number of police officers involved in the deaths
· A timeline of police operations and participation of seven officers who were frequently present at these operations
· An organizational chart that shows the relationship of Duterte, the national police chief, and other police officials to the Davao boys. Profiles appear when the page is scrolled and the circle containing a name is highlighted.
· What Reuters calls a “lexicon of terror,” which consists of words found in police reports on the deaths such as “buy bust” and “neutralize.” Again, when the page is scrolled, a term appears along with the percentage of reports where it is found.
Awesome.