How to decide a multimedia story

The news desks are flooded with news stories. How do you decide which ones of them can be told as a multimedia story? This is not an easy task.

You need to ask three key questions before taking a decision. These are:

1. Is there sufficient time?
A breaking story can be told in the traditional form – as text, audio or video story with or without still images, maps and graphics. The time needed to do so is reasonable. A multimedia story, in contrast, needs extensive research and use of several media. It is more detailed and complete, and therefore needs more time to complete.

2. Is there a compelling storyline?
A car accident on an expressway does not qualify for a multimedia story. But if there have been a spate of accidents on an expressway over a period of time then there is potential to do a multimedia story. You have data; you have visuals;you have eyewitness accounts; you have reader interest. It’s a heady combination to create a multimedia story.

3. Can the story be told in multiple formats?
A political story can be told in the inverted pyramid format as a news story or it can be converted into a news analysis with the writer painting different scenarios. However, a natural calamity like the havoc caused by the Uttarakhand cloudburst in May this year can best be captured in a multimedia story.

You can use video to bring out the scale of the devastation and the difficulty of rescue operations; still images to capture the shock and horror of the victims; maps to pinpoint the cities and valleys where the devastation happened or where tourists were trapped; interactive graphics to describe the flow of events; data charts to compare similar cloudbursts in the past. A multimedia story needs great detailing.

There should be plenty of information that can only be communicated in a non-linear format. This is why editors choose subjects that need in depth, investigative work to create multimedia stories. You need a compelling storyline, scale, numbers and multiple dimensions to come up with a powerful multimedia story.