Nobody Knows How Many Kids Die From Maltreatment and Abuse in the U.S.

I remember when Jessica Huseman tweeted about this story. She and Hilary Fung worked on it for seven years—seven years—outside of the scope of their regular jobs. Plowing through emotionally devastating data in order to tell a story. It was one of those moments where I was knocked back by the sheer power of journalism. 

The map included in the story gives context to how each state in the US responded to when Huseman and Fung asked for child death records. It's a simple but telling geographical map, a chloropleth map that uses differences in color to visualize info. The colors used provide nice symbolism. The cool calming blue is used for states that provided the reporters with all required information (maybe the only color that would've been better for this is green); the warning note of yellow is for states that provided some of the information, and takes over most of the map; and the five red states provided little or none of the required info. Making those states red is a really nice subtle way to invoke anger and indignation in the reader and help us see that withholding this information is wrong on the states' part. I think the only thing that could've been done better would be to make this map interactive. Make hovering over it allow the reader to see more about what the state actually provided.

And then, of course, there's devastation in the huge amount of data at the bottom of the article. Huseman and Fung give us the full scope of child deaths organized by state and include the cause of death, with links to sources. It's actually overwhelming to have that much data at your fingertips so I can't imagine how Huseman and Fung felt while collecting it. It's not a criticism though. It just allows for the reader to see more of the situation, if she wants.