Comments on: Here’s the future of storytelling

By: Mindy McAdams

Mindy McAdams — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 10:03:12 +0000

Thanks for the plug, Neil. You can see lots more great examples of Flash journalism here:

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:22:49 +0000

Well, I said I wanted to find out more about how to do this, so did some looking around. Mindy McAdams seems to be an expert (http://mindymcadams.com/) and has just published a new book on Flash journalism. The book has an accompanying site, which links throught to tips, examples, case studies etc:

http://flashjournalism.com/

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 11:59:19 +0000

They’ve been doing interesting things for a while. This about Oregan’s suicide option is much more powerful for hearing the voices of those who want to die: http://www.nytimes.com/package.....ATURE.html

Also the interactive obits (paid notices) here feel both dignified and relevant for a newspaper:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com...../cover.asp

(I’m giving a talk at the National Obituary Association Conference in a few weeks, can you tell?)

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:26:27 +0000

Thanks for pointing to this, Neil.

By: An idle writer

An idle writer — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 22:40:03 +0000

Multimedia editorial

The New York Times has been doing some interesting work in multimedia journalism. Is this the future of online editorial presentation? I would mind having a go!

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 22:34:15 +0000

Thanks for the link. This looks like an interesting format to work in. I’d certainly like to know how to produce this kind of content, and to have a go experimenting with it. I looked around their site and found a few more examples. For me, the most intriguing (because of the interactive potential) was Six Questions for Iran, which you should be able to see here:
http://www.nytimes.com/package.....ATURE.html

By: Nik

Nik — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 21:56:32 +0000

Yes, that’s all fair. I’m not sure I really bought into my own “lower right” theory, but I was too attracted to the idea of radical new ground being broken – as opposed to your (much more reasonable) suggestion of a bit of new ground being broken. Also I was far too interested in the analysis than the thing being analysed.

Certainly it’s not as expensive as TV production. I’d be interested to see how this pans out compared to, say, the production of multimedia CDs. (Don’t see many of those these days.) The skills are quite specialist, at least in so far as it takes more than one person to put together a multimedia piece.

On a related note, I wonder how scaleable this approach will be. It takes a lot of work to create a respectable website. But once you’ve got the basic template you keep sticking in more content, and you get more value out. Not so (as far as I can see) with this kind of thing, where you need to create new graphics for each new piece. (Unless there’s a nice Flash-oriented CMS in the wings.)

Still, I hope it all goes well. If only because that means more jobs for us all.

By: Neil Mc

Neil Mc — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 19:09:54 +0000

Hmm… expensive and specialist doesn’t strike me as a recipe for success in these cost-conscious times!

But I wonder if this kind of report has more in common with the low end than is immediately apparent? I’m not arguing that this is close to blogging, even podcasting, although I think it’s a big brother of the latter and the more talented cousin of the former. The shared gene among all, however, is dramatically lowered costs of production and, thus, cost of entry, for amateurs and previously uninterested businesses alike.

Given the time (perhaps the principle cost here), someone with quite modest skills could produce this report on a camcorder and decent laptop. The mass market production values aren’t hard – or expensive – to mimic now.

So I’d argue this kind of thing actually lies somewhere more to the middle of your matrix which, in itself, is quite new ground being broken.

By: Nik

Nik — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:36:31 +0000

It’s also far from quick ‘n’ dirty blogging, and a move on from podcasting.

You could draw a little 2×2, with the horizontal axis running from narrow audience (left) to broad audience (right), and the vertical axis running from low production values (bottom) to high production values (top).

Blog posts sit bottom left, TV reports sit top right. The multimedia report above is moving towards a new territory of bottom right – more expensive and specialist. That’s not a value judgement, but it’s an interesting indicator of a new path being forged.