Journal Entry 11: NYT China Documentary
In some earlier entries, I’ve talked about the concept of the changing journalism industry, the influence of Internet sources of news and the rise of visual media.
Here, I’d like to mention an example of getting it right:
UO Professor Suttmeier introduced this NYT “article” in the first week of his class on China’s Environmental Politics (PS 399). To me, it represents the future of the journalism industry. The article is really a miniature website, filled with multiple yet related articles that together yield a real understanding of the environmental issues at hand. This is combined with video documentaries showing the issues at hand, interactive objects like maps, as well as a narrated/music only still montages. Additionally, you have interactive roundtables, reference links and even Chinese translations.
Clearly, this website is combining the best aspects of the digital media (depth of coverage, interactivity and multimedia) while also providing the content a thorough NYT polish and shine. Readers are able to take as long as they want exploring the topic, which is explored in many different ways and different perspectives. All the while, they are viewing the adaptive advertising at the head of the page.
While it certainly isn’t possible to provide this level of coverage for every item of news, it seems to me that even doing one of these every two or three weeks would be well within the means of any medium-sized newspaper. It would certainly make news a lot more attractive to subscribers.
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