We all know loud noise can harm hearing. This immersive multimedia project reported on a largely unknown additional consequence: Excessive noise also threatens your heart.
That is a reality that is wholly counterintuitive. To understand and explain it, the Times brought together health, graphics, video and data journalists. The lead reporter, Emily Baumgaertner, a national health care correspondent, read through the body of scientific research, interviewed dozens of researchers (some repeatedly), dove deeply into government and university databases on noise levels, and studied regulation and policy in the United States and abroad.
To make this complex information resonant, the team decided to make sound integral to the reading experience. The journalists traveled to rural, urban and suburban communities to shoot video of the noise sources and to talk to people living with noise and visit their homes and schools. They measured sound levels with a professional instrument called a dosimeter, and incorporated an animated measure of those readings along with the recorded sound throughout the piece. The team translated the copious data and science into compelling and beautiful graphics.
The resulting piece made the health threats of noise both visible and – of course – audible to readers.
