Two Wonderfully Done Multimedia Stories

The New York Times' multimedia project on David Rohde's kidnapping in Afghanistan, as well as student Martin Ricard's winning piece on the prospects of farming in Sierra Leone, Africa after the civil war both left me in awe of the ability of images, video, and sound to express journalism stories to the fullest.

Although I did realize, before browsing through each of these projects, that photographs and video in journalism were for the benefit of the story, I have never seen such in depth and intricate projects such as these. I clicked on the New York Times piece first and was a little bored while first watching it.  I felt that, immediately, Rohde could have been more energetic about telling his story and that his explaination of everything should have been unscripted.  But after watching the entire thing and reading through some of his article parts of the whole project, I felt differently.  I saw how he may have been traumatically and emotionally effected by the events he went through and how, becuase the story was so long and detailed, that a scripted multimedia piece was necessary.

 I feel that, in the New York Times piece, the multimedia played an important part, in the long run, in keeping the viewer interested in the story.  I only say this because each of his articles (parts 1-5) were very long and required a large amount of dedicated time to get through, absorb and appriciate individually and entirely.  The video story allowed someone to get the whole story more quickly and directly, but without lacking the descriptive details that make Rohde's experience unique.

I thought Ricard's project was incrediable but a little confusing at first (for me - don't know about others).  The piece reminded me of something I might see in a museum, playing as a multimedia addition to an exhibit on this African country and its natives.  I think the reason why it confused me at first was because I am a slow reader and it automatically moved me onto the next slide before I was finished reading and comprehending all of the first one.  Then, on the second one, it took me a couple of minutes and clicking around to understand the direction in which the project was taking me.  I realize that this piece won for its photographs and multimedia assests, however I do think it could have been organized or directionally explained a little better for newcomers.

Despite these initial feelings, I really liked the project, as (again) the multimedia really captivated and fascinated me.  In some of the slides I felt that the background noises were slightly deistracting from the reading I was trying to do, but again my comprehension skills are less than exceptional, specially with auditory distractions.  I did think that the piece on the "Auntie" of all the children was my favorite, both story-wise and multimedia-wise.  I think he combined the story with the photos, video, writing, and audio the best here so that it was very effective.

I thought both were exceptional pieces of journalism that represented aspects of different cultures that the average American may fail to see.  I also thought they were both fabulous examples of how multimedia can strikingly enhance a story that may appear to be "just another story" about a foreign kidnapping or an African village.  It's definitely what makes both of these stories stand out.