2021
The gas chamber of India
Country/area: Finland
Organisation: Helsingin Sanomat HS.fi
Organisation size: Big
Publication date: 19 Jan 2020

Credit: Tommi Nieminen, Sami Kero, Uolevi Holmberg, Antti Hämäläinen, Päivi Niemi, Juho Salminen
Project description:
A classic reportage from India about air pollution added with interactive data journalism.
Impact reached:
One could say that air pollution in India is not a major topic in Finland where we have one of the cleanest breathing airs in the world. But it was just this contrast that this story is based on.
The story delivers a strong story and visuals from Delhi, India, so that we see and hear what it’s like to live in one the most polluted cities in the world.
And to get the context right the story offers a possibility to compare air quality in your nearest city to the one in Delhi.
Techniques/technologies used:
In the story there is a button where the user can give the page a permission to detect the location of the reader. Using the location, the page estimates the readers closest air quality measurement station in Finland and shows how the air quality there was compared to the one in Delhi at the time when HS visited India.
The article was done with Vue.js and the Geolocation Web API.
ScrollMagic and Lottie/Bodymovin javascript-libraries were also used in the article for effects and animations.
What was the hardest part of this project?
Regarding data the hardest part was to find the best possible data from India. For this we used experts from both Finland and India.
What can others learn from this project?
Data journalism (and geolocation) can be used as way to localize a global topic so that it is more approachable to the readers.