Al Shaw
Al Shaw is a Senior News Application Developer at ProPublica.
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Al Shaw is a Senior News Application Developer at ProPublica. He uses data and interactive graphics to cover environmental issues, natural disasters and politics.
A year before Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, Shaw was part of a team that produced “Hell and High Water,” which warned of the region's vulnerability to coastal storms. The project won a Peabody Award in 2017. Shaw's project, “Losing Ground,” about the century-long erosion of Louisiana's coast won a Gold Medal from the Society for News Design. His interactive maps surrounding FEMA's response to Hurricane Sandy were honored with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award. Before joining ProPublica, Shaw was a designer/developer at the political news website Talking Points Memo.
New Maps and a New Plan for New York
FEMA's released new, preliminary flood insurance maps for New York City, which specify how likely areas are to flood. The new maps, which replace maps that used data from 1983, double the number of structures in flood zones.
Without a Final Map, New York Rebuilds on Uncertain Ground
A 2012 law now puts over 67,000 New York City structures at risk of skyrocketing flood insurance rates. Can Bloomberg's ambitious plan save the city's coastal neighborhoods?
A Super-Simple Tool to Search Instagram by Time and Location
We wrote a little tool to search for Instagram photos taken at certain times and places
Play Our Experimental News Game: HeartSaver
HeartSaver is an experiment in news game design, built in two days for the April 2013 GEN Editors' Lab Hackathon. How many lives can you save?
HeartSaver: Experimenting with News Games to Tell a Story
HeartSaver, ProPublica's entry into the April 2013 GEN hack day, lets players steer New York City heart attack victims to the closest hospitals.
No Windows. One Exit. Free Drinks: Casino-Driven Design for Crowdsourcing
Casino-Driven Design, a technique we developed for Free the Files, cuts away all distraction and drives the user's attention toward staying focused on a single task.
Between Human and Machine: Thoughts on Malofiej 21 Day 2
One of the main undercurrents during the Malofiej World Infographic Summit was the tension between illustrative graphics, often borne out of photographs and sketches, and data visualization, whose raw material is often the very machine-based spreadsheet.
Outsider CAR: Quick Thoughts on Malofiej 21 Day 1
While the big graphics teams presented at the Malofiej Infographic Summit in Pamplona, Spain, there were also examples of artists and designers applying their own brand of CAR.
Interactive Map: See Where the Government is Lending after Sandy
See where the over 20,000 SBA rebuilding loans are, half of which fall in FEMA's new advisory flood zones.
After Sandy, Government Lends to Rebuild in Flood Zones
A ProPublica/WNYC analysis shows the federal government has approved $766 million to rebuild in areas prone to flooding.