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"Snow Fall" was, I think, the NYT's first serious effort at a multimedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Fall

Similar comment at the time:

> The NYT just kinda blew my mind. A newspaper article just blew my mind. This is, by far, the best multimedia storytelling I think I've ever seen. Kudos to the team involved in putting this together, you've shown me the future of media and the internet.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4951041

I don't really understand how the same paper does these incredible articles and then totally whiffs on other attempts such as:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/07/arts/dance-da...




This has nothing to do with the quality of that NYT avalanche reporting, or the technology -- but I was more than a little surprised how they dedicated that much staff time, resources, and production to that story.

After all, this was a story about how people engaging in a purely _voluntary_ (and mind you, luxury) sport were causing and encountering avalanches. Hardly the most exposé-of-power, human-nature-revealing, check-on-society pieces of journalism. Just stop hiking off trail to go snowboarding on unstable mountains! Sheesh.


Imagine piloting that format on a serious story, and the ensuing backlash if the format was ill-received.

Doing this work on a "low-stakes" story means that you have more room to experiment.


Well, that's a good point. And I'm sure the journalist writing the story had tons of material he/she was eager to see "in print". Let a writer fill up 10,000 words and he will.


We were hosting a family Christmas party and doing the associated prep work, and I remember really having to force myself to stop reading Snow Fall half way through! Such a great read to such a tragic incident.


NYT seems to be very much experimenting with a lot of different approaches.

Personally I like that we get to see it and they get to try it out in production.




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