December 3, 2010 at 2:37 PM EST
Are Time-Intensive Story Presentations Worthwhile?
If a story is posted on a news site, and no one cares, was there a point? Sometimes, us newsies wonder what the modern audience is looking for, and how to best convey interesting and engaging information.
You shouldn't have to solely consume a story in the order journalists dictate - you should be able to jump to a part that interests you, with the story crafters guiding, not demanding. Yet, it takes more time to both build and consume a story form that features this kind of flexibility. Are people still willing to devote that kind of time in this headline-a-minute world? We are if you are.
A recent article from the Knight Digital Media Center raises this very question.
Along the same lines, last week there was a big debate on Twitter and in the journo-blogosphere over whether journalists should learn database and/or programming skills to create in-depth pieces. Again, it’s a question of time. Mai Hoang, a business reporter based in Washington state, summarizes the thoughts of many (yes, including your trusty Data Producer) here.
I would argue that we need the data analysis skills as journalists, if we’re supposed to be making it easier for everyone to parse information that exists. And programming skills mean that if we can dream it, we can build it. If we make it interesting enough, our smart and savvy audience will stay engaged.
Our goal is to help news consumers navigate the news, and more news than ever is emerging as data, so using data analysis skills is a natural fit. It's not good enough to just throw data at you by posting it online as a search form, table, or even a map. That’s just more…stuff.
In "The Great Data Journalism Debate of 2010", I quickly and passionately said that programming can be a way we tell stories. Not as a piece that's a sidecar to the rest of the information, but one that tells a story that's equally important as the videos, online articles and all the other content we can provide. Each type of content benefits from the other but each is able to stand alone.
That means doing more than dumping data on a page. Because data, video clips, words, pictures, they're all just raw components until a storyteller mixes them together in the right way. It's worth taking the time to create that starting point, so we can all work together as we try to understand just what's happening in our world.
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