Who Produces World's Best Web Infographics? Arguably, Spain's El Mundo. A case study on how to produce compelling multimedia packages quickly.
By
Steve Outing
(August 19, 2004) -- Even non-Spanish speakers can appreciate the work of elmundo.es, the Web site of Spain's largest newspaper, El Mundo. Its Madrid-based 10-person online staff has built an international reputation as one of the leaders in multimedia journalism -- and as the worldwide leader when it comes to animated interactive infographics.
For three years running now, elmundo.es has won more awards and finalist spots in the Society for News Design's SND.ies international multimedia competition than anyone else. This year's awards won't be announced till the end of September, but elmundo.es again got more finalist nods than all the competition -- seven (though it was followed closely by NYTimes.com with six).
The site makes for a fascinating case study, because its approach is unique in the news business. While other news organizations take interactive infographics seriously -- crosstown rival El Pais, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, USAToday.com, the BBC and a few others spring to mind -- no one else has put this much effort and resources into the field. Few other sites are capable of publishing a complex Flash package only hours after a breaking news event, much less do it routinely.
And while other multimedia leaders such as MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and washingtonpost.com emphasize audio-narrated interactive slide shows and video, elmundo.es has devoted its work almost entirely to infographics.
The Power of Personality
Why has El Mundo gone where other news organizations fear to tread? Jane Ellen Stevens, a teaching fellow at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and an SND.ies judge, says most news companies don't place enough emphasis on research and development or training. "Unlike industries that embrace change," she says, "the news industry relies on change coming from individual journalists who are 'change agents.'"
At El Mundo, one of those change agents is Alberto Cairo, who heads the online interactive graphics department. He started doing infographics in 1997, and has been with El Mundo since 2000. Under his guidance, the site has risen in stature and won many awards.
Cairo's department has figured out how to respond quickly to breaking news, producing Flash displays that look as though they took days to produce. That ability is perhaps the site's gift to the rest of the industry -- a demonstration that indeed you can do multimedia under a tight deadline.
An outstanding example of this speed was the site's work after the March 11 terrorist train bombings in Madrid. Team members created 13 separate infographics in the hours after the news hit -- most of them impressive when standing alone, all of them together an amazing feat of deadline work.
Cairo thinks this is his team's best breaking-news work to date -- "not because they look really good -- they all don't -- but because they were produced in little time and have very good information. ... I think [March 11] is the best we have done in this field of made-in-a-few-hours-Flash-infographics so far."
That day was a crazy and emotional day for the team, of course (many of them regularly take the trains to work). They worked 18 hours, leaving at around 1 a.m. and then coming back in at 9 a.m. the next day to keep the information updated.
For breaking news there's a set plan for getting a basic infographic -- often a simple map -- up on the Web site as quickly as possible, then adding to it throughout the day as more details come in and the team completes more complex presentations. On March 11, the bombings happened around 7:40 a.m. Madrid time; the first version of the interactive was published at noon. More information was gathered in the afternoon, from the Web journalists as well as print-side reporters, and a much more complete package was posted by the evening. The interactives during such coverage include time stamps to keep readers informed when something new has been published, and to encourage them to check back for updates.
Another strong deadline graphic was about a bad train accident in Chinchilla, which happened at 9:30 p.m. The Web team came back to the newsroom and worked till morning. "The next day the most accurate graphic in Spanish newspapers was not one of the printed media, but ours," Cairo says, "because we didn't have a deadline."
Thank Goodness for Templates
Elmundo.es infographics are heavily templated, which is essential for breaking-news coverage. Web journalists have only to focus on the main content, which obviously speeds the process.
But templates are essential for feature graphics, as well. Cairo explains that the idea is to have the head (title and navigation) and foot (where the credits are) consistent through nearly all packages -- so that "a reader who visits us regularly will know where the navigation and feedback buttons are."
It's also easier on the journalists. Where they can be creative and imprint their own style is in the graphic's body. While many features are consistent in look and feel, team members are encouraged to occasionally step outside the normal design. An example is Elmundo.es' interactive about the Spanish royal wedding, published in May.
"I think this is a good way of giving our readers some surprises and not boring them," says Cairo, "and to allow the professionals [on the staff] to make their own decisions on their daily work. Freedom plus journalistic responsibility plus a little restraint [templates] is the key for professional development. I don't like those departments that force their workers to adapt to a style, because everyone's graphics will look the same and they'll not be comfortable."
The site's templating does cause some quibbling. Trisha Creekmore, a multimedia designer who works with Discovery.com, PBS and Time, says her sole complaint about viewing the site's work as an SND.ies judge was "getting tired of the same old template." But, "I have become a big template supporter. When you're not constantly reinventing the shell, you have more time to focus on the content and its presentation. Also, users are served well by a format they [come to] understand.
"Of course," she adds, "every time I was wishing elmundo.es would try something new, there they went, experimenting."
Quality Takes Time, But Less Now
Experimenting takes time, but Cairo says that compared to when they started four years ago, the time needed to produce a Flash feature is significantly reduced. Some take one person only a couple of hours to produce, others might take several one-man-weeks to complete all the necessary processes: reporting/documentation, storyboards, meetings and final art. Some examples:
Elmundo.es favors interactive infographics over the more bandwidth-heavy audio slide shows and video. Cairo says that in part his operation is influenced by a strong Spanish tradition of visual communication and print infographics. But there's more.
First, a lot of people visit the site from their workplaces in the morning, so they can't always listen to audio; infographics are better suited. Also, Cairo points out, audio and video can be bandwidth heavy, and broadband in Spain and South America -- El Mundo's principal markets -- is not that prevalent yet. "We'll lose readers if we offer them mainly 1- or 2-meg presentations," he says. The staff works to keep infographics below 200-250K, including secondary files that load while the animation is running.
Cairo admires the slide-show and video-heavy multimedia produced elsewhere. He's especially fond of the work of Geoff McGhee and the multimedia crew at NYTimes.com. "I think his department is showing all of us a way to follow" with its audio/slide-show/video news features produced quickly for breaking news (as evidenced in recent days with its Summer Olympics coverage).
Indeed, Cairo expects his shop to produce more of that type of content in the years ahead. "I think in the future there will be a convergence between those two ways: more infographics at NYTimes.com and similar Web sites, and more photos, video and audio at elmundo.es and similar Web sites," he says. "We're walking that way right now."
Says McGhee, NYTimes.com's enterprise editor, of El Mundo's approach, "They've developed a very effective and consistent body of online infographics that should serve as a gold standard in our business. It's instructive that they've kept raising the bar creatively while maintaining a uniform user interface. It reminds us that innovation doesn't mean that you have to confuse your audience with sweeping changes."
Together, But Separate
An interesting characteristic of elmundo.es is that it operates closely with but separate from the newspaper's print graphics department, run by Juantxo Cruz and Modesto Carrasco. Cairo and his team typically don't "adapt" print-side graphics for the Web but rather create their own. The cooperation comes in the form of routinely sharing information and reporting. The Web operation is stationed in the main newsroom.
In terms of sharing, if a major local story breaks early in the morning, the elmundo.es team will send out someone to cover it, then give all the information gathered to the print departments. "It can happen that the print side covers a story and we don't and vice versa," says Cairo. "Or they want to cover a story from a different point of view. We work 'together, but separately.'"
Oh, Yeah, the Money Thing
Last but not least, there is the issue of money to pay for all this great multimedia journalism. Cairo admits that his department doesn't make much money right now -- just some modest syndication revenues from licensing the Web graphics (such as health packages bought by pharmaceutical firms, and some sports graphics sold to the Mediterranean Olympic Games organization). But he's sure it will come in the future.
Cairo's justification for the newspaper's devotion to furthering multimedia journalism is more long range. "[Interactive graphics] are very powerful information tools and we are in the information business, so we must look for the best way of telling stories. That's our reason to exist."
He's heartened by the reaction to his team's work. The site has fans who follow its multimedia efforts even though they can't understand Spanish, including Japanese and Korean journalists and designers. You don't have to read a word of the language to understand how its designers are influencing the next generation of news storytellers.
Steve Outing
(steve@poynter.org)
has covered the online news industry for E&P since August 1995. He is senior editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla.
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Who Produces World's Best Web Infographics?
