Here’s a short rundown of the main points in the first draft.

What is Google Maps?

A free mapping service that provide easy tools for creating simple, interactive maps that can be embedded in any web page. – And, crazy useful for journalists.

Why you should use it?

Maps are probably one of the oldest forms of visuals, that has been used in news reporting. Apart from static maps, such as jpg images, interactive maps lets you put additional data such as images and video on top of the map. Interactive markers let the user decide what information they want, and when they want it. The web is not a passive media, it’s active and engaging and users want to be in control.

How you use it

First of all you need a Google account. If you haven’t already got one then it’s about time. Google has their own tutorial, and if Google has done something, they’ve probably done it the best, so I will shamelessly steal directly from theirs (btw. if you don’t like to read, watch the video demo). First of all log in to you Google account and go to Google Maps.

Creating your first map.

1. Click My Maps
2. Click Create new map.
3. Add a title and description for your map.
4. Decide whether the map should be public or unlisted. Public maps are automatically included in Google Maps search.
5. Use the icons in the top left corner of the map. These include:

Selection tool. Use this to drag the map and select placemarks, lines and shapes.
Placemark tool. Use this to add placemarks.
Line tool. Use this to draw lines.
Shape tool. Use this to draw shapes.

Adding Photos/Text

You can add photos to your map, as long as they are hosted online. Please use a service such as Google PicasaWeb to put your photos online.

To add photos:

1. Create or open a map.
2. Click the appropriate placemark, line, shape. The info window appears.
3. Click Edit.
4. Choose Rich Text or Edit HTML.
5. If you chose Rich Text mode, click the photo icon above the description field (the last one in the toolbar). Enter the URL of the photo you would like to add.
6. If you chose Edit HTML mode, use the <img> tag to add photos. For example, <img src=”http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/images/maps_results_logo.gif” width=150 height=55> adds the Google Maps logo to your map with a width of 150 pixels and a height of 55 pixels.
7. Click OK to save your changes.

Adding Videos

You can add Google Video and YouTube videos to your map. To do this:

1. Create or open a map.
2. Click the appropriate placemark, line or shape. The info window appears.
3. Click Edit.
4. Choose Edit HTML.
5. Find the video you want on YouTube or Google Video. Copy the snippet of code that lets you embed the video into a website or blog.
   • On Google Video, the snippet looks like this:
     <embed style=”width:400px; height:326px;” id=”VideoPlayback” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-274981837129821058&hl=en” flashvars=”"> </embed>
   • On YouTube, the snippet looks like this:
     <object width=”425″ height=”350″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hKoB0MHVBvM”></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hKoB0MHVBvM” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”350″></embed></object>
6. Paste the snippet of code into the description field of your placemark, line or shape.
7. Click OK to save your changes.

Here’s an even simpler version of the above for the complete beginner.

This is just a rough draft and intro to why journalists should use Google Maps, I would love to hear if you got any better motivation factors for why journalists should use this brilliant service.