Innovation-Long Form Features
In the UK, each publication has its own writing structure
that makes them unique from one another. Each newspaper differs slightly by
having it’s own writing style and layout which determines the type of audience
that reads it. Traditionally the Sunday Times have an educated audience with
around 48% of its readership achieving a degree level and higher (Times
Media).
With the print journalism in ‘crisis’ each publication is
competing to widen their audience and increase the readership to keep them-selves
alive. This is evident online where they
are expanding and making the websites more interactive and easier to read to
attract a wider audience than the printed versions. The new innovation of long
form news stories is an attempt to provide the audience with further material
and information than the written articles in the papers.
This is an increasingly popular and effective way for the
newspapers to get readers onto their site whilst engaging a new audience. The
websites are also mobile orientated so can be viewed from mobile phones and
tablets which are becoming increasingly popular when viewing things online. Buzzfeed
revealed in a survey last year that of 50,000 people watching/ reading online,
around 65% of them revealed they would rather watch/read longer articles on
their mobile phones and tablets. This could be due to the companionship people have
with their mobile phone and also the immersing scroll that online features
provide instead of the readers having to turn lots of pages.
The Sunday Times (Christina Lamb) produced a popular feature
called ‘My Year with Malala’ about the Pakistani schoolgirl that was shot by
the Taliban in January 2012. As the article features online, it is written at
length and contains an enormous amount of detail. This allows the audience to
build a connection with the writer and her experiences.
In this particular feature, Christina Lamb spent nine months
with Malala and her family to find out about their lives before and after the
Taliban shot her. The article is written based on the story that was currently
being written and is very descriptive, full of facts and overall very
interesting. By putting this feature on the website it allows ‘The Sunday Times’
to include a lot of detail which engages the audience into the article. It also
attracts other audiences who may have taken an interest in the news story that
broke out when the Taliban shot Malala.
The piece contains interactivity through the use of video
that could not feature in the newspaper. The first video contains recordings
and images along with a voice over from Christina Lamb. This short video appears
to be a way for Christina to portray her own views of the situation whilst
giving a brief incite into Malala’s lifestyle. The majority of the text remains
free from Christina’s opinions as it is written as a story based on her
experiences.
By containing videos it involves the readers that may not
want to read lots of text. Although the video doesn’t go into a lot of detail
it still informs the audience of what the text is about. The video is embedded
into the text and provides those reading with a break whilst supplying images
to look at.
The only problem with some of the videos being embedded into
the text is that they do not always relate to the text. This slightly disrupts
the reader when they are in full flow reading as they watch the video and then
have to remember what was happening in the article. However some of the videos
are engaging as they highlight just how famous Malala has become and the
authority she holds in society.
I find the embedded images very effective as they disappear
into the text as you scroll down the page. This allows you to view the large images
clearly until you carry on reading the article. The main video that contains Malala
and her father along with the strong images and footage appears at the end of
the article. This is to encourage people to scroll through the article and read
parts of the descriptive text. The final video is very powerful as it is
contains a first person account from Malala, along with an interview with her
father regarding everything that the family endured in 2012.
found this article on the Sunday Times website really
effective as it hooked me in and encouraged me to read the whole article. I
really enjoyed the descriptive tone of the text combined with the images and
videos as it continuously reminded me that the situation was real life. The
point of this article was to promote the book that came out last year. It
appears to be successful, as I have just ordered the book online!
I also looked at the 2013 Pulitzer prize winner for feature
writing; ‘Tunnel Creek Avalanche produced by John Branch from the New York
Times to compare with ‘My week with Malala’. This particular feature written by
John Branch was also inspired by a news story that broke out in 2012. The
Tunnel Creek Avalanche gained a lot of media coverage when it happened, as the
16 people involved in it, of which some died, were professional competitive
skiers and members of the free skiing media group including reporters and
photographers.
This particular long form feature includes five sections to
explain different parts of the journey to Tunnel Creek all the way through to
the word spreading about the tragedy. It is a very detailed feature that
includes strong interviews with the people that survived the avalanche. This
builds up a vivid image of what it was like to have experienced this incident
and forces the reader to sympathise with the victims. The piece contains a selection of images and
text about the person next to their interview to make you feel as if you know
them and provides you with an incite into their personal life.
The piece contains a lot of description and metaphors to
create an image for the reader whilst keeping them engaged in the situation as
it unfolds. It starts with an account from Elyse Saugstad who survived the
avalanche, ‘Snow filled her mouth. She caromed off things she never saw,
tumbling through a cluttered canyon like a steel marble falling through pins in
a pachinko machine.’
Many of the quotations used from the survivors contain a lot
of emotion and enable you to capture the moment and how it must have felt to be
trapped in such a scary situation. ‘It
really felt like I had died then, and that I was reborn into a nightmare’, was
a quote from Brenan when he found his friend ‘Brixey’ dead under a pile of
snow.
The images embedded into this snow feature are of amazing
quality. They provide the audience with an incite into the conditions up the
mountains. The feature also contains lots of graphics and diagrams that explain
aspects in detail so the reader keeps up with the tragedy unfolding. One of the
most successful diagrams is the simulation style graphic showing the speed of
the avalanche as it moves downhill reaching up to 65 mph. This shows that the
piece caters for a wide audience and doesn’t assume that the readers all
understand skiing and the set up of it. I felt that this piece was educational
as it taught me about the courses they took and where each person was at
different times along with the safety precautions they were equipped with.
Alongside the interviews embedded into the text are clips of
the interview with survivors for the audience to watch. It links slightly to
what they have quoted in the text however emphasises their emotions as they
relay their experiences. It also appeals to the people that wont have read the
text, as they can still understand what is happening through the videos and
graphic diagrams throughout the piece.
It is clear that these long form features take a lot of time
to plan and write. It is obvious that the journalist spends a long time
interviewing the people that feature in the articles to make sure they capture
their experiences. In both of the features, Christina and John have ensured
that there are enough images and interactive parts included in their features
to make it work effectively. It provides the audience with an experience rather
than just reading an article in the newspaper.
The homemade videos that both features include are important
as they continuously remind the audience that the situations being written
about are real life. The footage of Ron Parkey where he discovers someone is
dead beneath him from the beeping of his beacon is chilling for the audience to
watch.
Long form features seem to be increasingly popular with the
audience online as it provides them with interactivity that the newspapers
cannot do. The features are written in depth and contain a lot of description,
which builds up the tension. They provide the audience with the experience of
what they are reading rather than just the facts of it. Long form features keep
the audience on edge as it builds up the story and includes accounts from
everyone affected by the incident. I personally enjoyed reading and watching
the long form features online as they made me feel as if I was there with the
journalist and that I was part of what happened. As society today is shifting
towards online I think that long form features are going to become popular with
journalists. They have the potential to engage a larger audience than those who
enjoy reading magazines and newspapers.
Images are screen shots from both The New York Times
feature and The Sunday Times. Links are both above.
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I found it hard to write about an innovation for this particular work and struggled to find something to write about. But when I found these long form articles online it became clear that this was something I could write about. The idea of long form features is a new style that I found a lot more interesting to read. It isn't the 'norm' for newspapers online to produce features like this which is why I saw it as an innovation. It also captures a larger audience online than that of the newspaper and I think it is a positive thing for the newspapers and magazines to use. I enjoyed discovering some of these long form articles which is why I chose to write about it for this essay.
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