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(David Stoeffler)

OK, so stories about the First Family's new dog, Bo, probably drew more Web traffic on Easter weekend than an Associated Press investigation into the detention of U.S. citizens who have been mistaken for being illegal immigrants, or a Los Angeles Times look at how investors are benefiting from a federal program aimed at helping poor families buy homes.

Does that mean the future is dim for online readership of investigative journalism or that in-depth or explanatory reporting is not valued by digital users?

In a recent Presstime article, Charlotte Hall argues that one of the strengths of the print newspaper is its ability to help readers step back and assess bigger-picture issues.

Hall, editor of the Orlando Sentinel and outgoing president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, says the newspaper can offer "the kind of in-depth and analytical work that the 24/7 breaking news world on the Web cannot provide. Print is good at the things the Web is not good at - watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid."

I agree that the two media complement each other - and I'd like to see print editions put more emphasis on long-form journalism, good storytelling and strong use of photos and other visuals. Too often these days, the newspaper is simply a summary of what was already reported online, rather than a unique product.

That's one reason I am interested in the experiment under way at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Editor Nancy Barnes explained in this post why the organization is breaking in-depth reports in print first, and then publishing them several days later on the Web.

I'm not sure delaying publication is the right answer, but at least it is an effort to differentiate the print and online products.

What I'd rather see is more effort by newsrooms to create different versions of the story for different audiences. You'd create a long-form version for the print edition, displayed with photos and graphics. And, while you could make the full text available online, you'd develop a shorter text version for prominent display online, supplemented by video and audio, plus maps, satellite images and interactive graphics, as well as tie-ins to searchable databases. Online versions would be full of links - to original source materials and to related stories (including from competitors). And, of course, readers would be encouraged to participate in improving the online content and commenting on it.

In these ways, online can be a powerful ally to in-depth and investigative journalism.

Need proof it can be done by a mid-size news organization? Check out "I Didn't Do That Murder," from the Times Herald-Record, of Middletown, N.Y. This Ottaway paper, which has a strong online track record, was recognized for its work with a 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for online investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. The report uses online storytelling techniques, mixing in videos, a crime scene map and an interactive timeline.

Another good example comes from USA TODAY and its special report on toxic air near America's schools. In addition to the text, the online version of the series included several video reports, plus an interactive map and an exhaustive, easy-to-use database. You can search by state and then by city/county or by school name to find out how your school or area rank in terms of air quality. And once you've identified an area, you can look at details on local sources of pollution, and learn more information about potentially dangerous chemicals in the air.

Imagine the amount of newsprint required to provide the same amount of information.

Investigative journalism in the public interest is the mission of ProPublica and the site has a cleverly done Investigations section that helps readers keep track through a simple feature called This Week in Scandals.

Talking Points Memo won a Polk Award for its use of crowd-sourcing that helped lead to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Of course, there are many other good examples of how online journalism is developing. But don't take my word for it.

Jay Rosen, the deep thinker from New York University and ubiquitous PressThink blogger, recently engaged his Twitter followers with the following observation about Charlotte Hall's Presstime comments.

"It's 2009, and the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors is saying 'the Web is not good at explanatory?'" Rosen wrote. When asked for more details, he responded: "One example is 538.com, which does a better job explaining the polls than all newspaper stories about polling combined."


By David Stoeffler (dstoeffler@touchstonenews.com)
David Stoeffler runs Touchstone News Consulting and is a former top editor and vice president for news of Lee Enterprises. He is a frequent speaker at industry meetings and a regular faculty member in Media Management Center programs.

Labels: investigative journalism, news, newspapers, online journalism

(Rich Gordon)

Though journalists have been creating content for the World Wide Web for almost 15 years now, there's still much we don't know about what makes for effective storytelling on the Web. To be sure, there's no shortage of Web stories. But it's still rare to see Web storytelling that takes full advantage of the unique capabilities of this medium.

Here's one storytelling example that hits the mark: Our First Loves, a new Web site launched by an experimental undergraduate class (Advanced Interactive Design) at the Medill School, where I teach. The site features (as I write this) 89 first-person stories about "first loves," broadly defined - love for another person, for books, a dog, a family member, even Chewbacca from the "Star Wars" movies.

The site represents the work of 11 students who tackled every aspect of Web site development - from content to technology to design to usability - under the direction of my faculty colleagues Susan Mango Curtis and Jeremy Gilbert. It inspired me to come up with a list of attributes of great Web storytelling.

Here goes. Great Web storytelling is:

• Visual. Like TV, magazines and great newspaper photojournalism, great Web stories should look stunning. The Medill students achieved this goal with a clean design featuring lots of white space and a home page that features a dozen stories, represented as Polaroid snapshots.


• Interactive - as in, the user is in control of the storytelling experience. A user has many different choices in how to move through the site - clicking on the Polaroids, selecting based on various criteria, visiting the students' favorite stories, and more.


• Interactive - as in, users can interact with the content. They can rate each story by answering the question "This story made me..." and then choosing from 15 options, from "smile" to "want to slam my keyboard."


• Structured. This is not necessarily immediately apparent upon looking at the site. But every story is categorized based on a variety of attributes: the age and gender of the contributor, his or her age at first love, where the first love took place, the format of the story (audio, video, text, slideshow), the most common story ratings. To plan the site, the students built an elaborate spreadsheet that captured each attribute of every "first love" story. These multidimensional categories allow easy searching and browsing of related stories.


• Multimedia. Stories are presented in images, audio, video, slideshows and text.


• Technology-driven. It would have been very difficult to build this site as a series of HTML pages. Instead, it was built on top of WordPress, which is generally thought of only as a blogging platform but is also a very powerful database-driven Web content management system. Each story is actually a record in an SQL database, and the WordPress engine provides much of the magic that makes the site such an interesting user experience.


• Navigable. "Our First Loves" has a clear, consistent interface that always offers multiple options to the user. The site's navigability is a direct result of its data-driven and highly structured content approach.


• User-generated. The site encourages people to submit their own stories, which are reviewed by the students before posting. The students considered allowing user submissions to go live without moderation but decided that the risks of inappropriate content were too great.


• Personal. While the Web is a technology-driven medium, "Our First Loves" is intensely personal - a characteristic of many of the most compelling Web stories.


• Usable. Like all Web sites, "Our First Loves" can't engage an audience unless it makes sense to users. The students did extensive usability testing before settling on their final design and navigation approaches.


• A team game. While it's true that the Web opens up publishing to individuals like no other medium, great Web storytelling like "Our First Loves" requires collaboration among people with a variety of skills - in this case, visual design, technology, video production and more. The students organized themselves into roles: project management, content, technical development, and design/architecture.

The students presented the site last week to an audience of faculty, students and Medill staff. Some of the things they said they learned:

• How to work on a team;


• How to transfer print design skills to the Web;


• The value of usability testing;


• How to use new tools, such as WordPress;


• The basics of HTML and CSS.

It also helped, said student Jessica Huang, that "we're all really good about meeting our deadlines."

After the presentation, I conducted an email interview with Gilbert, a Medill alumnus who returned to his alma mater in September to teach digital journalism. Here's our interview.

This class brought together students with a variety of strengths and pre-existing skills. What did the class have to be taught that few if any of them already knew, in order to accomplish the end result?
There were two categories of skills the students either needed to learn or benefited from more practice: how to organize a project and Web development skills. The students had all been in team-based work environments before, but they needed to learn how to structure a fast- paced, Web development project. Co-instructor Susan Mango Curtis and I stressed both leadership and project management skills. The student leaders structured the project and helped determine what each other student's specific area of responsibility would be. Also, many of the students needed basic HTML and CSS to be able to use WordPress, the platform we had chosen to create the Website.

How important was it for students to have print design experience? Could the project have been as successful with fewer people having print design skills? What would be the minimum number of skilled print designers needed to pull off this project?
As a prerequisite, the students either had to take a print design class or a basic online storytelling class. Having knowledge about journalism, and especially visual journalism, was very important. The students' print design experience did not make building a Web site possible, but principles behind print design introduced the students to hierarchy, typography, color and grids - all of which are essential. To pull off this kind of project we needed at least 2-4 skilled designers and I would not have expected such a compelling, immersive Website from journalists without a visual background.

What skill set(s) that only one or two people had were indispensable to the project?
The decision to use a highly-customized WordPress site required some experience working with PHP (scripting language) and a fair amount of HTML/CSS experience. Likewise having a student interested in advanced videography and video editing skills allowed the class to create different kinds of stories. The class very much benefitted from the skills of Tom Giratikanon (the WordPress/PHP expert) and Tommy Giglio (the photography and video manager). Without them, the class would have to have been taught differently. For example, instead of starting from scratch with the WordPress theme we could have built on something existing or used a different content management system. The Web site building is not the most complicated piece of the project; the sophisticated, visual storytelling and the clarity of the user experience is.

What does this project suggest about what journalists need to know today (and what students should learn in journalism schools)?
All journalism students should all have some basic experience with HTML, CSS, Web 2.0 storytelling tools, multimedia reporting skills (photography/videography/audio recording) and a basic understanding of how to use employ/use a content management system. Far too many professional reporters with extensive, polished resumes are finding themselves forced to self-publish online. Had they had this basic training, that might not be a frightening prospect.


By Rich Gordon (richgor-at-northwestern.edu)
Rich Gordon is Associate Professor and Director of Digital Technology in Education at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Labels: digital storytelling, interactive storytelling, online journalism