News Packages

Published by Emil Abraham,


News packages
An online story package is not simply a news article that’s been uploaded to a Web site with perhaps a single photo accompanying it, instead, an online story that uses multiple media working together to tell a story. A package should contain at least one text story (possibly also one or more short sidebar stories), and multiple additional elements. These can include individual photos or photo galleries, one or more pieces of video or audio, one or more information graphics, or anything else that goes beyond words to help make a story more complete.
  • Sidebar story: A secondary article that accompanies a main story, usually focusing in more depth on a person or topic from the main story. These are common in online story packages because they provide additional detail that might not fit into a print publication.
  • An information graphic (often referred to as an "infographic") is a drawing, chart or other visual representation used to make facts or concepts easier to understand. Infographics can include graphs, charts, timelines and many other formats, and are generally used to visually represent data, locations, comparisons and changes over time. As computers became common in newsrooms in the 1980s and ’90s, these became popular in print publications. In online news, however, such graphics can be made interactive and include animations, video and other engaging functions.

Unlike some other types of news reporting, creating online story packages takes a lot of time. You can quickly put together online materials for a breaking story, but to create a fully integrated package is labor-intensive, especially when first learning how to do it. This is why the best of these packages are often done in the wake of a major event, or when covering a person or issue in which timeliness isn’t a major element. That means this class will rarely if ever focus on breaking news, but rather on more of a newsmagazine approach – giving readers a thorough, in-depth, well-researched look at a story.
A factor that makes creating multimedia story packages challenging is that unlike many traditional forms of news, there is no single "template" for creating them. Traditional print news articles have evolved over many decades into certain styles and approaches, as have TV and radio reports. Yet perhaps due to the multifaceted nature of online media and its newness to the news business, as well as the fact that new reporting and presentation technologies are constantly being introduced, there are relatively few structures or guidelines for creating effective online story packages. In such a vaguely-defined field, it’s hard to know where to start, but the lack of set standards means one can be creative and try to tell their stories in new and interesting ways.