20 Apr 08 Today’s Interactive Feature: ‘How the Pentagon Spread Its Message’ (NYT)

The New York Times has a pretty hard-hitting article today by David Barstow about how the Pentagon and the Bush administration used military analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.

Politics aside, the interactive feature included with the story really brings what could be a confusing and convoluted story and turns it into a coherent narrative. Using a combination of stock video from media outlets, animated graphics and an audio narrative, the story is told in a short, three-act structure. They almost follow a movie’s three-act structure, an impressive feat in just 12 minutes of content. Though it does bog down in the middle (they needed a love interest or something), it does keep you engaged and you want to watch all three pieces.

Also of note is the ‘Document Archive’ item at the bottom. It’s self-explanatory but it is a nice addition to the story, especially the copies of the memos and transcripts the article references. All are viewable in the Flash window or you can download them as PDFs.

An impressive package all around.

Now, a bit of a disclaimer. I’m going to try and stray away from the big three (or four) papers when looking at these interactive features from now on. It’s no surprise that the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and LA Times can churn out great interactive packages when they have a lot more resources than most. So, in the future, I’m going to try and be a little more intrepid and seek out features that smaller and lesser known news organizations are doing. Sometimes the best stuff comes out of where you would least expect it.

CREDITS: David Barstow, Gabriel Dance, Michele Monteleone, Amy O’Leary/The New York Times

Related Links

Tags: Interactive, journalism, new media

16 Apr 08 Online Feature round up: Virginia Tech Edition

One year ago Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Today news outlets are remembering the fallen students and presenting features related to the massacre and what can be done to perhaps prevent something like this from happening again. Here’s a quick round up of some of the online features that I saw and that stood out.

• One Year Later (Roanoke Times) - Though I commend them for making good use of a simple blog format, the inconsistency of the embedded video players and some other elements make it seem a little disjointed. I do like the navigation tabs, however when I tried to click on the ‘Interactives‘ tab, I got a Drupal error. It works now, but there are only two items promoted with only text links. Their memorials map is great looking: large, easy to navigate and contains pictures. Why not play it up more with a large thumbnail? Likewise with the video portraits feature. For the time spent on those they are criminally under-promoted.
  
• Remembering Virgina Tech (CNN) - CNN basically pulled together all of their stories and video regarding the incident into one story gallery. Since CNN has the resources naturally they have more multimedia than you can shake a stick at. I do, however, really like the gun legislation Flash map. I do think that news organizations need to stop being reluctant to promote outbound links to local media sites. I’m sure local media in each of those states had a story or two about the legislation or about guns CNN could have linked to in order to add some context. Why not do it?
• Virginia Tech, Still Healing (Washington Post) - Similar to the CNN feature, though I think they have a lot more content. The problem, it’s a bit buried. If you go to the story linked on the front page, it takes you to today’s story. If you weren’t curious enough, or paying attention, you might miss their entire package. You have to click the ‘Full Coverage’ link to get to the interactive features, victim profiles and multimedia. They should have made their main package link a little more obvious. Bonus to WaPo for including some UGC content. Oh, and WaPo still hides behind a registration wall, use BugMeNot to get by.
• Virginia Tech Shootings (Richmond Times-Dispatch) - A good example of how not to do an online feature. First, they have no overall title or headline, just ‘Virginia Tech Shootings.’ This doesn’t instill confidence in me that they put a lot of effort into it. Second, they constrained themselves to the size limits of their ad space. They limited themselves to the 665px content block in the middle. Not only that, they contained story links in a confusing and floating scrolling box next to the video. The entire thing looks very rushed. Moving down the page there is a block of links that, due to their design, look like Google ads. Their interactive memorial is nice, but is so small and under promoted that some readers might miss it.
• Virginia Tech Multimedia Gallery (Virginia-Pilot) - Again, more of a multimedia gallery than a full feature. The vertical navigation, going from slideshows to audio to video and then finally the interactive feature, is a bad idea. Like the whole ‘above the fold’ thing, people get bored scrolling. I know they want their newest content up top, but they could have done two columns or something. The interactive map should be a lot higher. The Pilot also linked to the Associated Press’ ‘Virginia Tech: One Year Later‘ feature. Of course the AP made a good showing. Audio slideshow, timeline and victim stories, all housed in a single, self-contained interactive feature. Most impressive.
• Va. Tech more secure a year after massacre (USA Today) - The McPaper also didn’t package everything together into one feature, but linked to their coverage on today’s story. This is fine, my only problem with this, however, is that the links to their photos, videos and interactive features are more than halfway down the page. Also, their ‘Remembering and moving forward’ video feature is a big, about 300px box, but the link is actually just the tiny, 20×20 ‘GO’ button. People might miss it and mistake it for a mere memorial ad or something, which would be a shame because the video feature is good.

Naturally, those aren’t all of the V-Tech features out there today. These are just the ones I saw. See any others that stand out? Send a link.

Related Links

Tags: features, news, online journalism

14 Apr 08 Quote of the Day: Christopher Hitchens

In response to the Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit the United States:

If Ratzinger is not asked at every stop he makes, and in level yet firm tones, why he and the Vatican continue to shelter Cardinal Law, our profession will have shamed and disgraced itself. We already know that the Pope is a Roman Catholic. What we need to hear is his reason for giving sinecure and asylum to the man who organized and excused the rape and torture of tens of thousands of American children. And then, when he has given his first answer, we need to hear how he answers all the supplementary questions.

This is from the Washington Post’s ongoing “interactive” feature about the state Catholicism, On Faith. Personally, I think they should have gone with a jazzier title, ‘Catholicism WOW!’ (tip: Dogma), or perhaps something more politically oriented, ‘Pope Watch 2008′.

The reason I put the word interactive in quotes is because, though touted as such, there isn’t much interaction beyond a normal story gallery. Right now it is mostly just print stories dressed up with graphics and a powder blue color scheme and a single video. I assume they are going to add more during the Pope’s visit, but they should have started it off with a bang. Perhaps an audio slideshow of Benedict’s history or even of Catholicism.

The Washington Post has the resources to do a lot more (and win Pulitzer’s). We’ll have to see how they play this out.

Related Links

Tags: Interactive, journalism, quotes, religion