The running tally of cost in this interactive graphic is stress inducing. It kinda reminds me of our house remodeling project.
Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life.
Seems apropos that I was reading this editorial when Laura made this photo.
The show seems to get the micro and macro right, but it’s those brush strokes in the middle — where the story is really being told — that sometimes blur.
Well said.
The two-part series contains all of the fruits of immersive reporting – strong portraiture, deep dives into causal relationships and persistent challenges to the conventional wisdom. And you will learn far more than you would staring at a cable television reporter trying to tread water with little in the way of reportable facts.
So glad that @carr2n posted and linked to this excellent piece of journalism from @ThisAmerLife.
Listen directly: 487: Harper High School, Part One.
The coincidence of timing was also a really, really good thing, because we were prepared to invest in building that staff. We hired Andrew DeVigal as our multimedia editor, that was a very, very big deal. And Andrew then helped Fiona and me build an even bigger and better team. Gabriel Dance had been there when I arrived; we recruited Tom Jackson, who was another really smart interactive and multimedia developer. Just an incredibly good brain, in terms of the technology as well as the journalism.
It was an amazing ride, Jim, and the pinnacle of my journalism career. I was honored to have worked with you in putting together that amazing team and launching some ground breaking interactive journalism.
The multimedia team went from a handful of people to 10 or so. And truly some of the smartest people in the business were recruited to be part of it.
Some of the best indeed. The multimedia team over the years:
And yet the middle class stubbornly hangs on, trading economic pain for the emotional gain of hot restaurants, the High Line and the feeling of being in the center of everything. The price tag for life’s basic necessities — everything from milk to haircuts to Lipitor to electricity, and especially housing — is more than twice the national average.
I feel… or rather, I felt your pain…
The New York Times works because it is, at heart, a collective of unique individuals bound together in pursuit of great journalism. We’re about the common goal, not about jostling one another for a place in a transitory spotlight. The mission is about us, not about me or you.
Class.
As we started to collect our ideas for the structure of the project, the multimedia group agreed that we didn’t want to create a bunch of different overlapping pieces and hang them all off the text. We wanted to make a single story out of all the assets, including the text. So the larger project wasn’t a typical design effort. It was an editing project that required us to weave things together so that text, video, photography and graphics could all be consumed in a way that was similar to reading—a different kind of reading. The two Sports editors and John were very interested in this idea, so we moved forward on parallel tracks, exchanging files and reviewing progress together.
From Graphics Steve Duenes. Truly an example of collaboration across multiple disciplines.
Editing, editing, editing. With a project of this scale and length, it can be easy to include mass amounts of data, information, visuals and audio because they exist and can compliment the story in different ways. It’s also easy to lose perspective on the big picture. One thing I think the team accomplished with this project is showing judiciousness in which elements best told the story at key moments in the text.
From Video Journalist Catherine Spangler. The importance of editing to make a cohesive experience.
As we were getting closer to launch, we were able to step back and review the various elements to see how they fit editorially, and we made design revisions and tweaks.
From Multimedia Producer Jacky Myint. The ability to build in time in the process to step back is key.
Bravo to the magnificent team that put this together.
Wright’s Law: Jeffrey Wright uses wacky experiments to teach children about the universe, but it is his own personal story that teaches them the true meaning of life.
Amazingly layered storytelling. An excellent example of how to keep a viewer engaged with a story. If this doesn’t touch you… check your pulse.
To attract the uninitiated, a display must be sensuous, readily grasped and memorable. Yet the concepts invoked are often abstract, requiring reflection and explanation.
Today’s challenges.
