Story Review

I know the Super Bowl is old news now, but I’ve been itching to blog about this incredible piece of interactive journalism by the New York Times’ Matthew Bloch and Shan Carter.

As the caption states, this “map shows the location and frequency of commonly used words in Super Bowl related [DD:Twitter] messages”. Sounds simple and even a bit boring, but is instead almost unbelievably cool and fascinating. I have yet to meet the person whose jaw does not drop when they first realise what the real effect of this interactive graphic is.

In essence, it’s just words from geo-tagged tweets placed on a map. But because the authors have also chosen to highlight the frequency of each word by making it bigger if it is more commonly mentioned, what we get is something that really feels like a cheering crowd watching sport’s biggest event for the season (according to Americans, that is). We can even feel how the tension rises as the game draws to an end and can almost imagine the fans shouting the names of Fitzgerald and Holmes during the dramatic finish.

Of course, the Super Bowl is not only a sporting but also a great marketing event and sure enough, we’ve got tweets from people talking about ads. It is amazing how passionate people can get about advertising. The universal support for Hulu, the free online video service, is especially noticeable.

VERDICT

Originality: 5 (out of 5)

We are not sure if Bloch and Carter knew what they were going to end up with when they first hatched the idea, but it just smacks of pure creative genius.

Presentation: 5 (out of 5)

Simple, slick and compelling. The idea to express word frequency by a larger font works out incredibly well.

Journalistic value: 5 (out of 5)

This is the best example we have come across so far of the media being just a facilitator in a discussion that goes on in the community. Barring the headline, the caption and the menus, all of the content is user-generated. The newspaper plays a role in the background, by making it all possible through its superior technological expertise and resources.

Overall: 5 (out of 5)

Outstanding.

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Thanks to Eric Ulken (@eulken) who pointed me to this interactive map.

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We could use your help. Contact us if you’d like to suggest a story worth reviewing, become a reviewer or get involved in any other way.

I was at the Digital Editors’ Network at UCLan in Preston, UK on Tuesday and saw an interesting presentation by Eric Ulken (formerly of the LA Times in the US) on how we can marry data and visualisation techniques to tell stories in a new way. Due to a lack of wi-fi in the hall (the irony!), he did not show us a lot of cool examples he had prepared. But all the links are in his slides, so here they are. (It may be a good idea to download the slides because not all links are clickable on Slide Share.)

Photosynth offers a great new way to experience pictures and to tell stories. If anyone would comment on whether they are required to install the software in order to see the slideshow, I’d be much obliged.

Mark Comerford

Mark Comerford established Europe’s first online newspaper in 1994 when he launched the website of Sweden’s biggest daily newspaper Aftonbladet.

He initially moved to Sweden in the early 1980s to work as a welder and a shipbuilder before moving to work in the digital world.

Since then he has spread his journalism knowledge across the globe teaching people from Africa to Britain how to get the best out of the Internet and digital technologies. He is a keen advocate of the notion that journalists should not be confined by what technology can currently offer, but rather make technology work for them. (Source: The Journalism Leaders Programme.)

In a Google Talk chat session Mark answered some questions about the future of newspapers and journalists.

D Damyanov: Do you believe newspapers will become obsolete and be entirely replaced by news websites?

M Comerford: No.

DD: Why not?

MC: Lol. OK. I think we will see a number of things happening to newspapers over the next few years, and maybe even quicker. A number of them will die as paper products. A number of them will migrate totally to the web. (And the fact that every household in the country [DD: the UK] will be guaranteed access to broadband Internet will accelerate and consolidate that change.) Some of them will become bi-weekly. Then there will be a two-tier series of papers. The free ones like Metro (which will probably be one of the few to continue making money) and top-level ones that come out on Saturday and will be analytical, deep, long and expensive. These will attract top-level advertisers and will be used as both an info service for the upper-class/educated etc and as a symbol in the same way watches are: “Look at me! I am discreetly telling you I belong to the wealthy and educated and influential, but not flashy.”

DD: So you mean paper will stay because it is tangible and can be easily used as a status symbol, unlike a digital publication?

MC: Yes. And that transition will be staggered, different speeds for the transition in different economic regions depending on a huge number of factors.

DD: Such as?

MC: Take China and South Africa. Both are new markets, both have seen an increase in newspaper launches, both have rising literacy levels. There will be an increase there but the cycle — new, grow, stagnate, die — will be much faster as there will be parallel growth in digital at the same time.

DD: Where do journalists fit into this picture? What is the future of the journalist ten or twenty years from now?

MC: There is a great future for journalists as story tellers/curators. There will be a load of new initiatives in regional and local digital-based products and they will need journalists.

DD: Yet right now it seems as though the industry does not need (or cannot afford) to have as many journalists?

MC: It is the monolith media that has structural and cyclical problems, not journalism per se. Though there is a problem in the perception traditional journalists have about what they do and what they are that needs to be addressed.

DD: If you were to explain it to them in one sentence what would it be?

MC: You’re fucked.

Can I use three sentences?

DD: Please do.

MC: Journalists are story builders. Those who build their stories best and understand that a story is a social object will survive.

DD: Will there be a third sentence?

MC: A social object implies that the story is a collaborative effort.

You can follow Mark’s updates on Twitter or find him in your favourite social network (he is markmedia in all of them). His blog is a great read.

Well, let’s get this started. We are not yet entirely clear about the design but we will just tweak the site on the go and hope you will not mind.

This blog will feature reviews of journalistic stories. No, it will not be like book reviews of extremely short books. We will try to explain.

People have told stories for as long as they have had language. Over the millennia, technology has changed and the ways to tell stories have multiplied. Storytelling started off as an oral tradition; it then expanded to paper, picture and video, and is nowadays going online. But, as well as changing the means to tell a story, each new medium has meant a shift in people’s perceptions of what a story is, how it is structured and how it works. Some writers of fiction, like Kurt Vonnegut in Breakfast of Champions, have experimented with doing away with storytelling.

Journalism has long been obsessed with telling stories. It still is. Many journalists are under the impression that they are in the business of producing and distributing news. And when they say news, they usually mean stories. Pictures, although an established part of the journalistic product, are largely seen as an aide to telling a story. Text is king.

But why should it be that way? Stories told in print, sound and video are ubiquitous. But can a Google map tell a story? Can a Java game tell a story? Can a discussion on a Facebook group’s wall tell a story? What will it mean for a story if a video shows one thing and the sound tells another?

An industry on the verge of a radical shift, as journalism is, needs bold and creative minds that are eager to explore and find the answers to such questions. This blog we will try to present some of the best efforts in the field in the hope to inspire creativity.

We will try to give an objective rating of each story reviewed, focusing on three main criteria: originality, presentation and journalistic value. The last one might need some explanation. Many journalists will probably think it means newsworthiness. But we are rather of the view that journalism is not about news: it is about content. Journalism is not about telling people something: it is about talking to them and listening to them, and letting their views become part of the story. Journalism is not about democracy: it is about community.

We are starting with just one reviewer – me – but hope people interested in the project will want to join. Also, we will be extremely grateful to anyone who suggests a story that we should review: the web is now too big to scale it alone. Do not be shy to promote your own stuff. If you have done a good job, there is no reason not to brag.

Image|quintessence by Demion