Runners approaching the finish line after the 5 hour mark. Several people stayed on the sidelines to cheer them on.
Monday, April 20, 2015 marked the 119th Boston Marathon. It was a cold and rainy day, but both runners and spectators came out for the annual race.
Marathoners approaching the finish line after a long race in the cold rain.
The 26 mile mark, indicating to runners they are approaching the finish line.
The Women of West Point Photo Essay. Screenshot taken from the NY Times Magazine.
Recently, The New York Times Magazine published a photo essay, “The Women of West Point,” depicting what it is like for women to attend the predominately male U.S. Military Academy at West point, one of the nation’s elite educational institutions. West Point was founded in 1802, and only until 1976 did the Academy begin admitting women. This year, 263 female cadets enrolled at West Point, adding to the 4,100-plus women who have succeeded the first 62 female graduates of 1980.
The female cadets featured in the photo essay. Screenshot taken from the New York Times Magazine.
In the weeks leading up to the 2014 graduation, Times photographer Damon Winter captured the daily lives of six female cadets, including top cadet Lindsey Danilack, in a series of black-and-white photos. Winter also photographed the women days and moments before the occasion, as well as the cadets’ celebration at the commencement itself. Quotes from the women explaining the action in the images are included in the captions.
The photo essay is compiled into three parts, each accompanied by a short audio clip featuring insights and reflections from the women Winter followed over those several weeks. In this visual and interactive piece, the Times Magazine is successful in bringing to light the experiences, struggles and joys of these West Point female cadets in a series of intimate, eye-opening and emotional photographs.
This essay is a prime example of how some stories lend themselves to being told through visual elements. In stories like “The Women of West Point,” showing what these women’s lives are like at the Academy is more powerful than telling it in words. The use of black and white photography also has a greater impact in this case. The black and white photos communicate the seriousness and commitment these women bring to their goals and education. The black and white gives viewers a deeper look into the “soul” of the characters.
![Oriana Ellis, class of 2014, in a human-anatomy class. “[One] thing that surprised me was diversity,” she says. “And not in the sense that I had to get used to diversity. I had to get used to a decrease in diversity, being from South Florida. . . . It was definitely a shock meeting people who’ve never been around someone who’s completely different than them.”](https://sarahemccullough.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/capture1.png)
Oriana Ellis, class of 2014, in a human-anatomy class. “[One] thing that surprised me was diversity,” she says. “And not in the sense that I had to get used to diversity. I had to get used to a decrease in diversity, being from South Florida. . . . It was definitely a shock meeting people who’ve never been around someone who’s completely different than them.” Screenshot taken from the New York Times Magazine.
Sneha Singh practicing the “one-rope bridge” with her teammate Collin Crane, class of 2016, for Sandhurst, an international, two-day competition of military skills and physical fitness. The participating teams, which include one from each of the cadet corps’ 36 companies, consist of eight men and one woman. “Most of the guys in my squad are really tall, so they can run a lot faster than I can,” Singh says. “I’m pretty small, so I’m pretty agile. And I could jump over things and crawl through things pretty easily, which the bigger guys in my squad can’t.” Screenshot taken from the New York Times Magazine.
Cadet First Capt. Lindsey Danilack (center) and her fellow cadets from the class of 2014 toss their caps into the air on commencement day. Screenshot taken from the New York Times Magazine.
In 2012, a Boston Globe team of five reporters and more than a dozen photographers, videographers, graphic artists, and data analysts spent a year immersed in the Dorchester neighborhood Bowdoin-Geneva, to ask the question, “Why does violence persist here?” The Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood is infamous for its violence and the city’s efforts to stop it. According to the Globe, in the last 25 years Bowdoin-Geneva has had four times the number of shootings per capita than Boston as a whole. The neighborhood’s murder rate exceeds more than triple that of the entire city. From May to September, more than a dozen shootings took place in the neighborhood, most of which were not even covered in the evening news.
Although Bowdoin-Geneva is seen by outsiders as a violent and disturbing place, it is home to more than 13,000 people, most of whom are proud of their neighborhood and would not choose to live anywhere else. Over the year the Globe team spent getting to know the neighborhood, interacting with its residents, and collecting local stories, they found that Bowdoin-Geneva is more than just an area fraught with crime. It is a “family neighborhood” that thrives with long traditions and an “old-fashioned sense of community.” Bowdoin-Geneva is unlike most modern U.S. neighborhoods today, in that its residents know each other, watch out for each other and feel a sense of closeness that has grown among families that have lived there for decades.
All those in Bowdoin-Geneva have endured losses of friends, family and loved-ones caused by the violence that continues to plague the neighborhood, and many of the residents are united in an effort to put an end to this problem. The Globe team has compiled its observations of the neighborhood and the stories of the people living there into this 5-part series, “68 Blocks: Life, Death, Hope,” which chronicles the neighborhood’s struggle to survive the violence and inspire a desperately-needed change. (All of the events were either directly observed by the reporters or, where noted, recounted to the reporter by someone who directly observed it.
Part 1: A disquieting spring. Screenshot taken from the Boston Globe website.
Part 2: The weather heats up. Screenshot taken from the Boston Globe website.
Part 3: Fourth of July jitters. Screenshot taken from the Boston Globe website.
Part 4: The dog days of August. Screenshot taken from the Boston Globe.
Part 5: Summer becomes fall. Screenshot taken from the Boston Globe.
When junior Joseph Dominic Carrabino—forward right wing for the Boston University hockey team—steps onto the ice before the start of a game, the last thing on his mind is the risk of head injury. But he has to be careful not to violate the new rules protecting players’ head safety.
“What was once a legal hit is no longer a legal hit,” said the 6-foot-6-inch, 230 pound Carrabino.
In recent years, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has cracked down on penalties involving contact to the head and neck in response to emerging Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) research evidence correlating this disease to involvement in aggressive sports.
“CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that is caused in part by repeated head impacts,” said Julie Stamm, doctoral candidate pursuing her degree in anatomy and neurobiology in the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS) at Boston University. “CTE is the only neurodegenerative disease that’s really preventable because we know that if you don’t hit your head, you’re not going to get it.”
The routine hits that occur across contact sports like hockey and football have raised complaints and concerns in retired athletes who have reported suffering the permanent consequences of brain damage later in life.
Deceased athletes whose brains were found to have the disease reported experiencing memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control issues, aggression, depression, and progressive dementia prior to death. These symptoms are associated with CTE brain degeneration; however, at this time the disease can only be identified in examining the brain postmortem.
The growing prevalence of concussion-related diseases and conditions like CTE among athletes has pressured the sports industry to act in account for these health risks and player safety.
“Each year, more than 300,000 sports-related concussions (SRC) occur across all sports and all levels in the United States, according to a 2013 ‘Ice Hockey Summit II’ report … The report’s authors advised the elimination of head hits from all levels of hockey, a change in body-checking policies and the elimination of fighting in all amateur and professional hockey. ‘Ice hockey SRC prevalence is high,’ the report states. ‘Hockey players compete at high speeds as they mature, risking injury from intentional and accidental collisions, body checks, illegal on-ice activity and fighting.'” —Youth hockey brain imaging study suggests early marker for concussion damage (University of Vermont)
In addition to NCAA improvement of game rules and regulations, universities like Boston University have taken their own strides to address the serious risks of head trauma. Increased concussion awareness and management have been seen in the BU athletic department, especially in sports like hockey.
Players for the BU hockey team must go through an education process on concussions and other head injuries when entering the athletic program.
“Then we have to go through what is called impact testing,” said Carrabino. “As freshman we are kind of exposed to some education, and I’ve been exposed to it through my junior career.”
The players also have to sign a waiver agreeing to report if they see a teammate demonstrating symptoms of a concussion.
“Before the season, a doctor comes in and talks about the concussions, how to treat them and how to recognize if other players [have] a concussion,” said junior Ahti Oksanen, forward for the BU hockey team.
The movement to spread awareness of CTE and its severity is stronger than ever, leaving some players like Carrabino to believe this may cost them more time off the ice.
“The awareness has been, you know… I would say it’s almost gone too far, but that’s just because I’m the athlete and I want to be out there,” said Carrabino. “But for the safety of us, I think it’s advanced to a safe point.”
Stamm, GMS graduate student, clarifies that is important to promote ongoing concussion awareness and management; however, the goal of CTE research is not to discourage people from playing sports.
“I think it’s incredibly important because we know how to prevent it,” said Stamm. “We know at least don’t hit your head. We don’t know if there is a threshold, but we know there are steps we can take to make sports safer … Sports are a very important part of our lives and we want to keep it that way, but people should not have long-term deficits form playing these sports.”
Recent rule adjustments in college-level sports were implemented with a clear intent to limit the risk of head injury. Some athletes like Carrabino do not see the need for the NCAA and university athletic departments to take further action on this issue, but Oksanen anticipates the approval of more rule changes in coming years.
“They’re focusing a lot on the hits to the head … You get longer penalties than you used to get 5 years ago,” said 6-foot-3-inch, 203 pound Oksanen. “I think there will be new changes too, like the rules, but I can’t say what they will be.”
Although athletes understand the potential health risks of playing contact sports long-term, leading the longest career possible and staying in the game remains their first priority, despite the heightened attention surrounding CTE. Oksanen is one of the many college athletes who wants to play his sport as long as he can.
“I think everyone knows the risks, but people like playing hockey,” said Oksanen, who hopes to play hockey professionally. “People know the risks, I know the risks, but I just love playing hockey … Playing hockey is more important to me. Of course everyone wants their career to be as long as possible. I wouldn’t think about retiring earlier because of CTE. I think every hockey player’s dream is to play as long as they possibly can.”
For Oksanen, who has been playing hockey since he was 5, and Carrabino, who started playing at 4, hockey has become their lives. At this stage in their athletic career, their passion for the game is greater than the concern of future health issues, especially when entering the rink.
“The way I see it, the enjoyment of playing outweighs the thought of the risk of injury,” said Carrabino. “That’s not really something you think about before going into a game.”
The BU hockey coaches were unavailable to comment at this time.
As one of the world’s premier outlets for news distribution, the New York Times offers its readership several different ways to retrieve the news other than the traditional process of sifting through the print of a newspaper. As a high-quality, multi-dimensional journalism platform, the Times incorporates a range of diverse, interactive multimedia elements in its website to enhance its storytelling power. Times Video is an example of how the New York Times uses multimedia to go beyond the limits of a printed paper to share information. Times Video brings the contents of the Times to life by providing visual reporting on every area of the news, from national politics and conflicts abroad, to the latest scientific achievements and cultural trends.
Snapshot of Times Video’s latest and most popular content taken from the New York Times website.
Times Video exposes the news in an artistic, professional and informative way that could not be achieved by other means. The Times captures stories that lend themselves to videography, such as sports events like a high-stakes bowling tournament as told in “The Greatest Bowling Story Ever Told,” an episode in a new curated series of short documentary films partially funded by Kickstarter. A variety of camera angles, action-shots, audio elements and interviews were combined to bring this story to life for the Times Video audience to relive a brief moment in history as it unfolded that night.
Times Video has channels and shows for every section of the newspaper, covering all major topics and areas of interest. Times Minute is one of the shows produced for the U.S. & Politics channel that aims to provide “the latest in national and international news, politics, ideas and culture delivered with smart analysis from Times reporters and editors – all in 60 seconds.” Another example of a Times Video show is TimesTalks, which features interviews with leaders in the arts, politics and fashion, is presented on the culture channel.
Screenshot of the drop-down menu listing the Times Video channels and series taken from the New York Times website.
Screenshot of the Times Minute channel homepage taken from the New York Times website.
Screenshot of the Times Talks series taken from the New York Times website.
Screenshot taken from The New York Times’s The Upshot.
March Madness 2015, the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball Tournament starts this Thursday, March 19. By now, fans are scrambling to perfect their brackets before the games. Brackets are tree diagrams that outline the series of games played during the tournament. Millions of college basketball fans go through the process of filling out brackets to predict the winners of each game. Typically fans either fill out printable brackets that can be downloaded online from websites like ESPN or they can fill out their brackets online and print them. And then there is always the old-fashion way of sketching and filling out brackets by hand.
With this year’s March Madness upon us, The Upshot introduced a new kind of bracket. The New York Times’s N.C.A.A. bracket game is titled “An N.C.A.A. Bracket for Risk-Takers,” because the more unpopular picks are worth more points. The Upshot claims, “you can fill it out like any other bracket — but it’s not like any other bracket.” The Upshot is a New York Times website dedicated to providing news and analysis about politics, policy and everyday life using graphics and interactive features.
Screenshot of The New York Times’s N.C.A.A March Madness bracket taken from The Upshot.
The Upshot’s customizable visualization and infographic elements are what make this portal not only unique but successful, in that readers are able to better understand and interpret the news given the opportunity to interact with the content. In this spirit of The Upshot’s emphasis on interactive interplay, the New York Times created a March Madness bracket that is different than the others. This bracket takes an alternative approach to the traditional scoring system in the March Madness pool: “Instead of fixing the number of points for each game, we let the market decide: The more people who choose a certain team to win, the lower your reward for picking that team.” The complete breakdown of the bracket rules can be read in The Upshot’s article “Here’s How Our N.C.A.A. Bracket Works.” Essentially, the more uncommon a fan’s picks are, the more points he or she will be awarded if those picks are correct.
Screenshot of link to the New York Times’s The Upshot bracket game with interactive features taken from the New York Times.
The Upshot allows fans to sign in or create an account to save their bracket and see their results. The Upshot also provides a scoreboard, which features a continuously updated overview of current points for correct upset picks and the percent of readers picking each team to win. The Times‘s bracket game is a creative and exciting way to mix up the traditional bracket competition among fans, and encourages them to take risks. The bracket’s interactive elements provide fans with a new, immersive way to experience and follow the championship, and entertain their March Madness fever.
Furthermore, the “N.C.A.A. Bracket for Risk-Takers” game is a real contest that begins on March 15, 2015, at 7:00:01 p.m. ET and ends on March 19, 2015 an hour before the first tipoff of the Round of 64. More information on the official rules and terms of entry can be found at the bottom of the “Here’s How Our N.C.A.A. Bracket Works” article. The winner will receive an Apple Watch. In this, The Upshot is not only welcoming a web-based, interactive bracket to the March Madness scene, it is also inviting fans to participate in a national competition by playing a unique version of the bracket game. In doing so, The Upshot is increasing viewer traffic to its website, and using the power of web-driven interaction technology to prove why it is one of the best sites for retrieving the news.
On Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, the New York Times paid homage to the late Leonard Nimoy, internationally-known for playing the half-Vulcan, half-human character Mr. Spock in the television and movie Star Trek franchise. The Times‘ obituary for Nimoy features a short video at the top of the page titled “The Man Who Was Spock.” The video looks back on Nimoy’s career as Mr. Spock, the character that established Nimoy as a “folk hero.”
Video featuring snippets from Mr. Nimoy’s career as the “Star Trek” character Mr. Spock. Screenshot taken from the NYT website.
The obituary describes Nimoy’s artistic endeavors that were unrelated to the Star Trek series. The Times‘ explains Nimoy as he identified himself with Mr. Spock, in addition to touching on who Nimoy was outside of his famous character. Another video is featured halfway through the article, in which Nimoy explains in an interview the origin of the Vulcan hand signal Mr. Spock uses in the Star Trek series.
Video of Leonard Nimoy explaining the Vulcan hand signal used by Mr. Spock in the “Star Trek” series. Snapshot taken from the NYT website.
On the right-hand side of the text, related coverage on Mr. Nimoy and recent comments dedicated to Mr. Nimoy are featured. In the final third of the obituary, the NYT includes a slideshow of twelve photos taken throughout Mr. Nimoy’s career that show the range of his talents and pursuits, and noteworthy events in his life that occurred in his years in the spotlight.
Slideshow of significant moments throughout Mr. Nimoy’s career. Screenshot taken from the NYT website.
The NYT remembered Leonard Nimoy with respect and admiration by publishing this obituary which gives proper credence to the full spectrum of his career: his accomplishments onstage as Mr. Spock and offstage as an active artist.
The New York Times‘ opinion pages, known as the “Opinionator,” feature exclusive online commentary from several different contributors. The Opinionator is sectioned off into multiple series. Each series contains content dedicated to discussing a specific topic or subject. These blog series weekly publish commentary examining their given issue.
Snapshot taken from the opinion pages of the NYT. List of recent posts.
The Stone, as characterized in its online description, “features the writing of contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.” Couch contains essays by psychotherapists, patients and others about different experiences and aspects in therapy, such as psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy, marriage therapy, hypnotherapy and beyond. The Stone and Couch are two examples of the series the NYT features as destinations for opinions and commentary on specific topics. Some series have designated moderators who are experts in the discussion topic of their series. The series on the Opinionator welcome different ideas and issues to be discussed on one forum.
Snapshot taken from the NYT opinion pages. Sections of the Opinionator.
The Opinionator provides a platform for commentary on subjects that people of various backgrounds are interested in reading. Currently, the Opinionator has a handful of running series and regular contributors. However, this section of the paper has room to grow in that more topics can be covered by creating more series for readers to explore and enjoy. The Opinionator is also a lot less visually engaging than the other sections of the Times. Although this is the opinion section of the paper, it would be beneficial to include multimedia elements, even just related photographs or images, throughout the commentary to enhance readers’ experiences of the content. As of now, the opinion section is mainly bland text. Although each series features strong content, the opinion column does not match up to the more multimedia-oriented sections of the paper.
Snapshot taken from the NYT opinion pages. Recent post from the “Anxiety” series on the Opinionator.
The Upshot is a New York Times website dedicated to covering news about politics, policy, economics and everyday life. This online news source is data-driven, allowing its readers to visually consume and understand the news. Data-focused reporting is becoming increasingly popular, and The Upshot is Times‘ way of keeping up with this growing trend. A few of The Upshot’s most popular political and economic interactive articles include, Mapping the Spreading of Drought Across the U.S., Is It Better to Rent or Buy? and How Birth Year Influences Political Views. The latter, for example, includes a graph showing how whites born between 1937 and 1994 have leaned politically over their lives. The slider above the graph allows the reader to select the year that he was born to see how his age group voted in an average presidential election compared to that of the other age groups, and see the active change in the graph across voters.
Snapshot of graph depicting how whites born between the years of 1937 and 1994 have leaned politically over their lives. Taken from The Upshot website.
Another model demonstrates that a certain age range, between 14 and 24, is the most formative in terms of choosing a political party. This data enables scientists and statisticians to predict groups’ presidential voting tendencies over time.
Snapshot of model depicting how formative events are at different ages. Taken from The Upshot website.
The Upshot’s approach to reporting the news by using data visualization and infographics accomplishes its goal of helping readers better analyze, absorb and understand what is going on around them and in the world. The interactive elements that compliment many of the website’s visualizations make data more approachable and easy to tackle. The Upshot designs its charts and graphs in a way that non-experts can effectively interpret numbers and statistics. The incorporation of these visual features does not replace the Times‘ comprehensive and detailed reporting of the news. Instead, they serve to enhance the analysis of information and provide greater depth and color to each story.
Screenshot of the title and opening image of “Snow Fall” taken from the NYT website.
John Branch’s “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” is one of the New York Times’ most impressive news projects and a prime example of how to use multimedia to tell a dynamic story. The Times incorporates several elements of multimedia to enhance the story and provide an interactive experience for its readers. Throughout the article, readers encounter video clips, gifs (short animations), photographs, virtual landscape tours, animated charts and diagrams and snapshot profiles.
Screenshot of a short clip from an interview with a survivor taken from the NYT website.
Screenshot of a gif displaying the terrain taken from the NYT website.
The placement of these media give readers the opportunity to follow the story in more ways than just digesting the text. Readers can virtually explore the location in which the story takes place and reference animated graphs to further understand the progression of the avalanche and imagine what the terrain looked like while the action was unfolding. The snapshots introduce the readers to the faces and backgrounds of the characters as they first appear in the story. Since this article is longer than what would traditionally appear in the newspaper, the graphic elements and animated features help advance the story by keeping readers engaged, and guiding them through the multi-part story. This project demonstrates how powerful multimedia is in changing the way readers get their news. The media used in this online article give life, color and dimension to an otherwise well-written, but long, dense and text-heavy story.
Screenshot of a slideshow of photographs from night skiing at Stevens Pass, the evening before the avalanche, taken from the NYT website.
Screenshot of the 16 skiers and snowboarders at Tunnel Creek during the avalanche taken from the NYT website.
Sarah E. McCullough 