Multimedia package: China’s explosive growth

When The New York Times tackled the significant story of environmental consequences of China’s economic development, the producers bundled the print story together with three typical online media forms on the Web site: an audio slideshow, a video, and a graphic two-fer containing a lovely interactive map and a helpful animated graph.

Choking on Growth: “A series of articles and multimedia examining the human toll, global impact and political challenge of China’s epic pollution crisis.”

This package both suffers from some of the typical “big package problems” and overcomes some of the others.

Plus: The 4,300-word text article appears on normal Web pages (albeit cut into six parts) and is not awkwardly jammed into the package.

Plus: All the non-text segments of the package are linked in an attractive sidebar box, which appears on every page of the text article.

Minus: The opening panel of the multimedia package features the text story, but with nothing but a weak teaser blurb to introduce it. Granted, the photo is excellent. But if you’re going to use one panel out of only four to introduce the text segment, why not take better advantage of that?

Minus: The slideshow (2 min. 38 sec.) opens in a separate pop-up window. Let’s integrate packages, shall we?

Plus: The pictures, by NYT photojournalist Chang W. Lee, are excellent, well edited, and help tell the story visually.

Minus: The slideshow’s audio track is only music. To me, this is a wasted opportunity. Audio is a great storytelling tool, but this music doesn’t tell a story, and it doesn’t enhance the pictures.

Plus: The video (6 min. 8 sec.) focus on one clear topic: China’s effort to calculate the environmental cost of development, using a national “Green GDP.” The voiceover comprises two interviews, one with the NYT Beijing bureau chief, and the other with a project director from the Natural Resources Defense Council (I don’t think he’s identified well enough, and he doesn’t appear in the text story at all).

Minus: The video is a bit boring. First, it’s long. Second, it’s not a story. It’s just 6 minutes of B-roll laid over two interviews. Now, the visuals are very good, and the interviews are good, and the editing is good. Technically, it’s all good. But you know, two guys talking about economics? Is this a good use of video?

Plus: The map is really, really nice. I love a good map that helps me understand a story better, and that’s precisely what this map does. It includes four very brief text blocks and has a simple rollover interface.

Minus: The main package tab is labeled “Interactive Graphic: Mapping the Impact.” When you click the tab, you go to a new page for the map, but — surprise! The map has a second tab labeled “How China Compares to the World.” Which means what? Another map? No, it is, in fact, a series of six animated graphs that are just fantastic in conveying some very interesting information!

Plus: The graphic “How China Compares to the World” (built in Flash) is a wonderful example of how to convey statistical information online. Gray dots represent the countries of the world. A blue dot represents the United States, and a red dot, China. Check out the amount of natural resources or arable land for all countries, or GDP. I admire this very much for both its clarity and its ease of use.

Plus: Throughout this week, the Times is hosting an Expert Roundtable about China. This is linked on the right-hand side of the package and also on each page of the text story. Readers are invited to submit questions or comments for the experts.

That’s seven pluses and five minuses. I think this is a fine example for journalists who are planning multimedia packages for their online sites. The enhancements to what’s possible in print — that is, what you can provide online that cannot be provided in print — give print readers a good reason to go online and spend time at the Web site.

I’d like to see more of a Web-first approach, however. This package seems to assume that I will read that long text story. If I don’t, there’s a lot I’m going to miss. Why not supply more of that information in non-text media forms?