Newspapers have long lead the parade with cartoons and pictures as integral parts of their papers. The Web has changed that just a bit and now a broad set of media are starting to show up in the websites of newspapers and magazines. The problem of course, is that new media such as slideshows, animated cartoons and video can only be translated back to their print publications either as a link or one or two image grabs – a few of many images.
With that in mind, here is how one paper, the NYTimes is coping with the reality that online allows the “newspaper” to be more real – provide more context, more realistic sounds and images in videos, and more expressive opportunity.
Cartoons are alive and sort of well
Cartoons in the Times appear episodically, Frank Rich’s column almost always has a cartoon but other columnists like David Pogue have cartoons sometimes.
But the Times has a whole section of their website devoted to photography. It is called the Lens and features not just NYTimes photographers but a broad range of outstanding lens men :
Here is another from the Lens.
This image is from a series about Bedroom War Memorials for soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a most powerful piece.
Video is alive and well even though it is hard to reproduce faithfully in the print edition. There is a lot of sports action but also a broad range of topics in the Video section – you just have to look carefully:
Try the videos from the Opera, its great stuff.
Perhaps the best use of multimedia was the NYTimes depiction of the margin of victory in the recent Winter Olympics using sounds to beep the difference between first and tenth – absolutely wonderful.
Summary
So still images, cartoons and arts still prosper among the print media. But with the rise of iPads, Kindles and other eReaders do expect the move to electronic “reading” and therefore media to continue apace. After all with television and video this transition to full motion reality is already well under way.