Great long-form multimedia journalism

Rudi Fingers

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Jul 18, 2005
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Inspired by DeJesus Built My Hotrod's post on the New York Times' multimedia article on the Tunnel Creek avalanche...

Post great long-form multimedia articles here - especially articles that push the boundaries of journalism with their layout as well as their content.

I'll start:

The Verge has a great article out today: "For Amusement Only:the life and death of the American Arcade".

The content (video and story) is great, but the incredible part is the layout - the scrolling call-out text over static images is mindblowing and original.
 

weeba

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Jul 16, 2005
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Be sure to book mark www.longform.org and www.longreads.com for more daily long form articles.
 

Drocca

darrell foster wallace
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Jul 21, 2005
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I check both daily but find longform MUCH better than longreads. Longreads has less articles and their best are on longform anyway AND longform puts up awesome throw back articles.
 

Rudi Fingers

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DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
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Dec 16, 2010
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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html
 
Russian family cut off from human contact for 40 years, living in the wilderness.
 

Thus it was in the remote south of the forest in the summer of 1978. A helicopter sent to find a safe spot to land a party of geologists was skimming the treeline a hundred or so miles from the Mongolian border when it dropped into the thickly wooded valley of an unnamed tributary of the Abakan, a seething ribbon of water rushing through dangerous terrain. The valley walls were narrow, with sides that were close to vertical in places, and the skinny pine and birch trees swaying in the rotors' downdraft were so thickly clustered that there was no chance of finding a spot to set the aircraft down. But, peering intently through his windscreen in search of a landing place, the pilot saw something that should not have been there. It was a clearing, 6,000 feet up a mountainside, wedged between the pine and larch and scored with what looked like long, dark furrows. The baffled helicopter crew made several passes before reluctantly concluding that this was evidence of human habitation—a garden that, from the size and shape of the clearing, must have been there for a long time.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html#ixzz2JOlPeE3y
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
 

donutogre

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Jul 20, 2005
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Going the distance: driving the Tesla Model S in the real world — from The Verge
 
I'm biased, because I work for The Verge, but the video we did is absolutely one of my favorite things we've ever done. Thought it was interested particularly in light of the NYT review scandal going around this week (which I saw we're already discussing elsewhere).
 
Another, less biased pick:
Michael Jordan has not left the building — from ESPN
 
I've largely given up on reading ESPN, but this piece is absolutely fantastic. Nice layout, too — not so much on the multimedia front, but it's far better than most things I've seen from ESPN. The content itself is second to none, in my opinion... I don't think I've read a single better piece about MJ before.
 

Muddy Chicken

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Jul 25, 2011
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2 great long-formers:

1) A piece on that modern miracle known as the US Post Office in Esquire::

The postal service is not a federal agency. It does not cost taxpayers a dollar. It loses money only because Congress mandates that it do so. What it is is a miracle of high technology and human touch. It's what binds us together as a country.

Also, a fantastic story on the Tijuana Xolos soccer team in SB Nation
[/quote]
Just finished reading this, thanks for posting it. See the Post Office in a bit of a different light now.
 

Infield Infidel

teaching korea american
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Jul 15, 2005
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Pat Jordan has a nice series of stories on SBNation.com
 
This one is about pitchers without "stuff"
 http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/6/11/4395198/lessons-from-the-linescore-pat-jor
 
Of course, I also admired great pitchers with the big stuff: Warren Spahn, Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, and Justin Verlander. I admired, too, the very good pitchers with nice stuff: Vic Raschi, Bob Lemon, Robin Roberts, C.C. Sabathia, James Shields, and my old minor league teammate, Phil Niekro. But over the years, I have most learned to appreciate the Joe Blantons of baseball, the bricklayers of their craft like Livan Hernandez, Mark Buehrle, and Tony Cloninger, my minor league teammate. I had better stuff than all of them put together, except for Tony, yet I lasted only three years in the minors, while they all pitched successfully in the major leagues for years.
What did they have that I lacked? Fifty years after my failure, I'm still searching for the answer to that question.
 

Rudi Fingers

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TFP

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I enjoyed this article from The Verge about producing NFL games on Fox.
 
Link
 

Rudi Fingers

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Remember Charlie Rich, the '70's country singer who sang "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"?  My parents had the album, and played it over and over.  I had absolutely no clue about this guy's life.
 
It's hard not to give spoilers, so I'm just going to tell you that http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/jan/07/issue-83-dear-charlie/ is fantastic.  You will not be disappointed.
 

Vandalman

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Apr 23, 2010
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That's a great (but disturbing) article on Meggett. Let's hope he makes some "friends" in his place of residence.
 

Dan Murfman

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Aug 21, 2001
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No one but Aaron Hernandez will ever fully grasp how a millionaire tight end came to gun down a friend three summers ago. But Aaron's older brother, Jonathan, was there from day one, and he witnessed all the little moments, all the poor choices, all the unwise associations that led to murder. That perspective cost Jonathan his way of living—but that's O.K. He understands

by Michael Rosenberg
http://www.si.com/longform/2016/aaron-hernandez-brother-dj-hernandez/index.html?noroute=true
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Sep 12, 2003
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Not sure about resurrecting old threads, but this was a really good read about the impact sports can have on lives, so I took the risk to share it with you all:

https://projects.nj.com/features/thegame/index.html
Full disclosure - I went to Montclair High years before this game, but moved away so didn't really know all the details, and certainly none of the aftermath until yesterday
It was a good read...until the post-game stuff. So after all that, the coach retired and moved to Florida. The QB got into drugs, perhaps because of the game but also he lost his father at an early age. The rest of the players interviewed emotions ranged from that the game was devestating, hurt their college recruitment (I highly doubt that), and they got over it.

The author talks to multiple family members who all tell him they don't want to talk to him, yet he tracks them all down and continually contacts them. Same goes for the QB.

Looks like he tried to make a story out about a football obsessed town (and I am sorry, but the town comes off as pathetic) and how one loss crushed a whole team...and came up with nothing.
 

Hoya81

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Feb 3, 2010
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https://www.nj.com/slide-trial/
I saw this article a few weeks back and thought about posting it in the coaching forum. A JV baseball coach in NJ was being sued after one of his players had a freak injury sliding into third base.