The Newspaper Story of the Future
After the horrendous weekend of shootings in Chicago, many news organizations rushed to cover the May 17-30 events. Most did the same typical coverage, but The New York Times took a new approach which may usher a new day for news coverage.
If you’re searching for this, look for “A Weekend in Chicago.” The scrolling story is a mixture of edited video, a print story, still photography, graphics and finally, an animated graphic at the end of the story. The story itself looks like a website. The animated graphic shows the shootings on a map of Chicago in chronological order to demonstrate where and when the shootings occurred.
It is a comprehensive in-depth look at the people involved and the city trying to deal with the problem. I found myself going back to the story several times as I tried to come to grips with the 64 victims shot in one weekend in a Midwestern city.
There are no reported results from the story, however, the use may have implications for years to come. The use of multi-media within a story made the coverage feel totally inclusive, eye-opening and emotionally engaging. The story, and the way it was presented, drew me back to it again and again. I was seeing a new kind of journalism that is not encumbered by space (limited column inches) or time (a typical news package is about 1 minute and 30 seconds long). The focus seemed to be on telling a complete story—not filling time or space in a news hole. If that’s the future, journalism is going to find a new golden age.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.