By: Pauline Millard I love a great local story, even if it's in a town where I don't live.
Today I visited the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal and checked out their
video and multimedia page. They've taken all the small stories that would normally fill a newspaper's features or community sections and used video to tell the stories. The outcome is some really great stories that work better online than they would in print.
There is a great video about a local farmer who grows sorghum to make
sorghum syrup. It's an effective piece because in the span of four minutes viewers learn all about sorghum, about how settlers brought it over from Africa in the 1850s, and how it's processed into syrup.
Another great piece is the video of the senior citizens who developed a new form of exercise and socializing through
dancing with their dogs. Video is the perfect medium for this piece, because you can see the owners and their dogs together.
The Journal Sentinel also has an interesting take on the ads on their site. In addition to the banner ads on the homepage, large ads cover the screen before a reader gets to a story. It reminds me a lot of the full-age ads one would find in a newspaper. Sure, readers have to click to close them, but I defintely got an eyeful of whatever was being shown.
How is your paper covering colorful local stories on the Web? I'd love to see them
Here are some of my past Picks:
Varsity 845 Blends High School Sports Reporting With Web
'Chicago Tribune' Makes Video About
Army PlatoonWashingtonPost.com Creates Multimedia Story About A
Special Cheer Squad
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