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Multimedia competitions
NPPA sets bar high for first multimedia competition of 2009
NPPA announced their winners for January’s multimedia contest, and I was excited to see two projects listed that I had not previously seen. If you have some extra time, make sure to check out “The Rites of Life” by The News & Advance and “Testing grounds” by St. Pete Times: two nicely designed and thorough multimedia presentations.
“Testing grounds” is an insightful investigative piece about drug testing in India. The video and photography were top-notch, along with the design.
I was disappointed though to see still graphics for “From Lab to Market” and “Statistics.” I think this was a missed opportunity to engage the users and allow them to play with the data to unveil their own findings. It is always more powerful for the user to “find” the story through the statistics, rather than just stating the facts for them.
I would also urge them to attempt a new layout and navigational treatment, as I have mentioned in the past. Overall though, this is an exceptional story with wide-reaching implications.
“The Rites of Life” is a documentary series chronicling 10 different stages of life, including birth, teen years, marriage, and care giving. I immediately noticed that a former Poynter summer fellowship writer, Liz Barry, was involved in the package which was exciting for me (and for all other Poynter alumn!).
There wasn’t anything in terms of innovation or interactivity, but there is a lot of great journalistic storytelling, both in print and visuals. The audio slide shows overall were tightly edited with great photography. I personally might have used less music though and opted more for the great nat sound that they sprinkled throughout. I can tell that a lot of time and hard work went into this series and I look forward to reading and viewing all of the sections.
As a side note, I am intrigued to know why they chose a Blogger site to showcase the series. What do you think of this decision?
Without a doubt, I would still argue that “Thirst in the Mojave” should have gotten first place in terms of innovation, interactivity and multimedia storytelling. However, I am happy to see publications of all sizes receive attention for their latest multimedia packages. Congrats to all!
Other posts that might interest you:
- The importance of multimedia competitions within our industry
- Multiple competition deadlines looming … enter now!
- Analysis on 2009 SSND multimedia entries and winners
Tags: competition, Desiree Perry, Kathleen Flynn, Kim Raff, Liz Barry, NPPA, St. Pete Times, The News & Advance, The Rites of Life Discussion
One comment for “NPPA sets bar high for first multimedia competition of 2009”
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So glad you found “Testing grounds” interesting. As to the simple design and layout, this seems to help with keeping the viewer engaged and improves time spent with the report. With more cleverly designed interactive layouts we have found (sadly) that the time spent often goes way down. Simple seem to work best. The star of “Testing grounds” was the video. We wanted to let it shine. At 10 minutes it’s one of the longest videos we have ever put online. That being said, we also hoped after seeing the video, that the viewer would want to read the story. The graphics were additional sidebar information.