I teach computer-assisted reporting and love how maps can be used to help people visualize the story. One of the best places that gets into this is a blog called Flowing Data and this map of unemployment around the U.S. Even better, check this one out so you can pan from 2004 to the most recent data. In terms of what people know, everyone knows someone out of work or threatened with joblessness, but these maps give us a broader, and more depressing, portrait.
