This piece published in the Toronto Star is a well written feature on anorexia that uses a personal story as a focal point but also explores myths of the disease, history, and symptoms. Partway down the page is a good example of interactive graphics – a simplistic timeline with multiple tabs that may be good for giving context in longer stories in small chunks.
The story can be found here.
The New York Times is planning a major overhaul of how it views and conducts journalism.
The new plans come two years after NYT’s innovation report came out, which was an extensive blueprint of how the paper views itself in the digital age moving forward. The current plan is more tangible — it talks about having ‘clusters’ instead of clumping major topics like climate change under certain desks like National, International or Metropolitan. There are also plans to move away print planning from all editors to dedicated teams of designers and editors for a more extensive focus on digital storytelling.
Here’s a Poynter article on NYT’s plans.
This is a free, video-based course on data journalism available online. It has lectures, tutorials, assignments, readings and discussion forums.
The course has modules which teach journalism students how to find ideas with data analysis, managing messy data and telling stories with visualizations. It is taught by five journalism experts, including university professors and professionals specializing in data.
The course can be found here.
This format for video is more creative than many that are released from most news outlets. Vox has used a technique similar to white board drawing videos that are erased as the narrator speakers. This is also a great example of a research driven video that is visually interesting and might have social media users pausing on timelines and news feeds.
The Queen’s Journal does a surprisingly solid job when it comes to long form stories. “Stereotypically Queen’s” incorporates interactive graphics, video and an engaging story within a beautiful interface. As you scroll through the page, the graphics and facts on the left change to keep readers engaged. You’ll also notice that this story had a team of eight working on it from writing, editing, research and multimedia. In order to have a strong story that features video and multimedia — it requires a team and planning ahead! When a story is pitched, these things were evidently thought about.
Now This is very strong when it comes to short-form videos that rely heavily on quick graphics and subtitles on the screen that briefly explain a story or issue. The Gazette has crafted videos like this last year (think the salt video) but Now This uses a variety of colour, graphics, found-footage, freeze frame, music, etc. to create more variety and a more engaging video that is more likely to cause people to stop when Facebook begins to autoplay it. This video about Hillary Clinton’s love for hot sauce is a good example.
Vox is particularly strong when it comes to creating videos that don’t necessarily rely on footage they have shot themselves. Rather, they look to create a mini-documentary based on archival and found footage. There are many websites and resources that offer footage for copyright free. Moreover, I believe copyright material (film, television, etc.) is allowed to be used as long as you use less than 30 seconds. Regardless, this is a great example of a longer form video to accompany a longer story.
This multimedia collection on President Obama’s presidency in the Washington Post is very well done. The entire front end of the feature is presented in full-page graphics. It provides a great template idea for presenting long-form stories and features with timelines.
The story can be found here.
“As journalists, we ignore science not only at our own peril, but at the peril of our readers, viewers and listeners.
In this course, you’ll learn to how make sense of scientific data and tell stories in ways that connect with your audience. You’ll get techniques and tips to improve your interviewing and reporting skills. You’ll also learn how to lift the veil from front groups to launch investigations based on informed fact-gathering.
When you’re done, you’ll have a toolkit of ways to identify and overcome the barriers journalists face when reporting on science-related topics.”
This paid Poynter course is available here. Editors and staff should contact the Gazette editor-in-chief for access to the course.
The New York Times Innovation Report provides a deep insight in the digital shift of one of the world’s largest newspapers. It’s a long-read but definitely worth the time. The report was initially an internal document but was leaked. The report compares the NYT’s digital transformation to online competitors such as the Huffington Post and the Guardian. It also lays out the news organization’s plans moving forward.
The online version of the New York Times Innovation Report can be found here.
