The New York Times: One in 8 Million
NEW YORK – The New York Times has an ongoing audiovisual slideshow series called One In 8 Million. Each week, a different New York character is portrayed, showing a slice of their life through beautiful black and white photography with accompanying narration. The series, which began in January of this year, is flash-based, but doesn’t over-tax your computer or your mind with unnecessary animation. Web developers please pay attention: this is how to do a flash slideshow (Interactive Development by Tom Jackson). The stories and the people behind them are interesting and compelling. The pace of the presentation is just right: we have enough time to study the photograph’s composition, drink in the atmosphere, appreciate the excellent audio in the subject’s own voice (thankfully devoid of any music). This series and others like it may just show the way to profitability for newspapers everywhere. It does something that print cannot do, and that television is too often unwilling to do. It is more akin to a radio program like NPR’s great StoryCorps series, or perhaps This American Life with Ira Glass… but with pictures. Each piece is fairly short – only a few minutes (or so) long.
The latest installment, Maggie Nesciur: The Walker, features Production and Interview by Sarah Kramer (who, along with Alexis Mainland, is credited as a Series Co-Producer), with gorgeous Photographs by Todd Heisler (who has capably photographed the entire series thus far). Ms. Nesciur talks about one vital aspect of her life: walking around the city. It is incredibly moody and atmospheric. A video wouldn’t convey the same mood as this photography does. Mood music would be an unwelcome addition to the audio. Other titles, such as Andrew Baum: The Rookie Detective, Nancy Bunche: The Mayoral Maid, Melissa Dixson: The Urban Taxidermist, and Ed Grajales: The Dictaphone Doctor are all equally compelling. Incidentally, Sarah and Alexis are aided by several other Producer/Interviewers along the way, each of whom do a quality job with their subjects.
In a time when many online newspapers just seem to have given up, it is a hopeful sign to see such high quality work continually churned out by The New York Times. I have no idea how this or any other single item will help contribute to the new monetization model of online media (whatever that may be), but it’s a step in the right direction.
Credits: Slightly modified screenshot of The New York Times feature piece.
