Photojournalism and Multimedia: Simplicity is Key

By McKenzie Somers

A response to Brandon Ryan’s “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: The Future of Photojournalism”

A picture is not worth just a thousand words, it’s worth more than words. During our trip to the Newseum in Washington, D.C, I found myself especially drawn to the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs that were on display. I was there for only a brief few minutes, but it felt like hours. I was mesmerized by each and every photo. By the time I was able to pull my eyes away and move onto the next, I felt as if I was also experiencing what the subjects were experiencing. One of the recent winners, a photo following a school shooting, was one of the most memorable.

As I looked at the photo of a student hugging their teacher outside of the school, I couldn’t help but feel the pain that was on their face. I didn’t just empathize with it, I felt it. I choked up thinking about what that photo would look like had it been at my school. Would my friends have made it out? My teachers? I can only assume that what I was feeling was only a fraction of what that student was, but it still left me holding back tears.

This was not the only picture that used just a fraction of a moment in time to impact me the way that it did. The exhibit walls were lined with other photos that did the same thing. There were plenty of images that left me wanting to cry, but there were also images that showed love and happiness.

Photojournalism is game-changing. It opens the world of journalism to a new form of reporting, multimedia. As Jane Stevens says, “A multimedia story is some combination of text, still photographs, video clips, audio, graphics and interactively presented on a Web site in a nonlinear format in which the information in each medium is complementary, not redundant” (Stevens 2014). If a journalist is able to expand on their photography and create complementary interactive pieces, they could provide an even bigger emotional impact than a photo through further immersing their readers. This is why multimedia is so amazing, yet, this complexity could also be its downfall.

Photojournalism is accelerating quickly but I think we really need to hold on to what it is currently, it’s simple. Multimedia feature sites have so much potential to immerse readers in the story, but there is also so much potential to take away from the story. Sometimes, all you need is a single image, a single sound bite, or a single video to tell the story. Having all of these different aspects and media types at one time could clutter the senses and take away from the emotions that are being displayed. Sometimes, less is more.

The article “A Betrayal” by Hannah Dreier of ProPublica utilizes photography and video to portray the story of a former gang member, Triste, who tried to reach redemption but was betrayed by the authorities. The feature starts with a video at the top of the page, telling the story from Triste’s point of view and then continues to an article that dives into the details a bit more, featuring photographs and sketches. These aspects are complementary and work well together, while also avoiding redundancy. The photos and video work very well to convey the strong emotions of the story. Though this article is not technically a multimedia story it is just as, if not more, effective. The reason that this feature succeeds is because of simplicity.  Yes, multimedia opens journalism up to an entire new world to be explored, however, we, as journalists, can’t get caught up in all the bells and whistles, we need to keep our focus on the story.

Sources

Dreier, H. April 2, 2018. A Betrayal.< https://features.propublica.org/ms-13/a-betrayal-ms13-gang-police-fbi-ice-deportation/> Date Accessed December 6, 2019.

Stevens, J. 2014. Tutorial: Multimedia Storytelling: learn the secrets from experts. <https://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish/> Accessed December 6, 2019