EPJ: Multimedia critique I

Tom Nagel

April 8, 2011

Electronic Photojournalism

News Multimedia Critique

The Washington Post’s series and digital presentation “Top Secret America” is one of the most interesting, significant and complex pieces of journalism I’ve seen. Moreover, speaking on multimedia, this piece has it all. It’s presented, I believe in Flash or something similar, and combines interactive info graphics, pictures, video, articles, maps, and links.

In casual words, I find it overwhelming. Yet, I’ll argue that this is a positive criticism because its format is a reflection of an overwhelmingly complex issue. Thus, being complex, it would be disservice to over look and over simplify an issue of such importance.

Interacting with the “Top Secret America”, however, reveals that overwhelming issues can be appropriately presented via skillful and effective organization. The video intro presents a nut graph summary of the piece, and a user is allowed to research his or her relevant interests.

There is a couple of interesting ways to understand and use the piece. I use these words because “to understand” the piece as simple as reading the article and viewing the photo gallery. “To use” the piece is best illustrated in an interactive Google map where by one can compare the number of agencies to know, for example, how many top secret agencies work in Columbia, MO — zero — as opposed to St. Louis, MO — 14 — and New York, NY — 67. In J2100 News Writing we’re taught how to localize an issue, and the Washington Post has localized the issue for anyone with a zip code.

Yet on a larger and more significant scale, I enjoyed the section called “Explore Connections.” Which describes the top down connections between different agencies handling intelligence work. The agencies are color coded by type or work done in graphic form, while a text menu also can guide the user to the same information via the users choice in navigational comfort.

“Top Secret America” is about as all encompassing as a journalism piece can be. Yet, there are some lessons beyond the impact of overwhelming amounts of information. The piece, being complex, offers a plethora of examples for students. That is information can be presented in a variety of ways. Exploring those ways as a user, allows me to plan how I’d like to present based my preferences to certain formats for certain contents.