Take a look at how the Boston Globe’s series on the Massachusetts General Hospital ICU plays out online. The series, by writer Scott Allen and photographer Michele McDonald, delves deep into the training of an ICU nurse, Julia Zelixon, a Russian-Jewish immigrant. The online version has more photos (plus they look better), an interview with McDonald and Allen, a slide show narrated by Allen, and sound clips from Zelixon and her mentor, M.J. Pender.
An impressive effort, but also a fascinating take on what newspapers need to do if they want to survive.
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Anonymous
I am part of the dwindling demographic–over 50 and a Globe subscriber for most of my adult life. My parents were subscribers too, so paging through the hard copy delivered each day is a deeply-engrained habit.But even I have been taking the coffee and muffin downstairs and reading the news online more lately.The ICU story is a good example. I only glanced at it in the paper. Online the story really comes alive. The number of photos and their quality do help a lot.Is this what newspapers need to do to survive? Trouble is, if the answer is yes, it means what they need to do to survive is not to be newspapers any more. They will only occupy an online space too similar to the free online magazines, whose quality is also improving. There is still no obvious economic model for the papers to succeed if they go in this direction.