Advice & inspiration

Video interview with New York Times’ Amanda Cox

New Media Days, a media conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, just wrapped up and New York Times’ graphic editor Amanda Cox did an interesting presentation delving behind the scenes of the Times’ graphics. She spoke for roughly 35 minutes following a brief introduction, and then answered questions for the last 15 minutes. I suggest watching the entire interview if you have the time, or just jump to my favorite quotes below if you are time-strapped.

The blog Visual Journalism also has some great thoughts on the speech, including the fact that the majority of their graphics are not templates.

They also touch on the notion that Amanda is extremely modest, which I have also realized. You can’t find her anywhere on the Web outside of the Times. I even reached out to her to be included in the “Innovative Individuals” series, which she declined because she didn’t want to be singled out from her team. Regardless, she is obviously talented and I enjoyed hearing her thoughts on interactivity and visual storytelling.

My top-five favorite highlights:

8 min: “That kind of annotation – it feels fun to me … Building on top of each other, bringing to the table what you know – The annotation layer is the most important thing we do … It elevates the data results to something more than they are on their own.”

11 min: “We sort of adore sliders – I think sliders are the best user interface element ever in terms of a journalist because there’s this cheap way of having a story in it because there is a beginning, middle and end to the slider and so there’s this narrative structure.”

15 min: “Another form of context that we can be successful at is an idea I think of in my head like background singers … someone who doesn’t attract attention to themselves.”

18 min: “The form wants to depend on the story you are trying to tell. Form is super important. Form really matters. It reveals things that are different in each one.”

36 min: “The balance between real interactivity and narrative storytelling is something the world is still trying to figure out.”

HT: Monica Ulmanu

Other posts that might interest you:

• Video must-see: Jonathan Harris’ talk “Cold + Bold”
• 20 educational (and free!) multimedia resources
• Inspirational motion graphic: “The clock is ticking”

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