Our readers are the foundation of our work. From our Pulitzer prize-winning series to our daily coverage, they inform what stories we tell and how we tell them.
We took the unusual step of publishing photographs and videos taken during the immediate aftermaths of some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. Through 11 mass killings involving an AR-15, “Terror on Repeat” provides the most comprehensive account to date of this weapon’s repeating pattern of destruction, through the voices, photographs and videos of people who experienced it.
As our story took form, we faced the challenge of how to carefully guide readers through these graphic images. We began with a visual edit that followed the chronological order of a typical AR-15 mass shooting, as it transformed a seemingly safe space into a zone of gruesome violence. We used deliberate language and design cues to guide readers on what to expect and encourage them to not look away.
While interactive elements and motion are integral tools to tell our stories more visually, for some readers they can also cause migraines or vertigo. For a story about migraine auras, a visual blind spot boarded by shimmering light, we wanted to give our audience the option to opt out of this reading experience. Our reduced motion component is now incorporated into our template for use across all our interactive stories, a large step in making them more accessible.
As we examined the declining life spans of Americans, we thought it was cruical to bring our readers into the story. We built a life expectancy calculator and comparison tool that allowed readers to personalize results by age, sex, and state, and to see projected life expectancy compared with people in other states and nations.
Our stories come from every corner of our newsroom and connect with readers in new and creative ways. Copy aide Claire Healy prompted the revelatory series “The Collection,” which offers the most extensive analysis and accounting of the Smithsonian’s unreconciled legacy of harvesting human remains in more than 80 countries. Searching for Maura, an illustrated story in the series, chronicles a Filipino woman whose brain was likely taken after she died at the 1904 World’s Fair.
To determine who was behind a trove of nearly 300 leaked classified documents shared on the online chat platform, Discord, reporters used open-source investigation tools to tie together Discord users with other social media profiles, resulting in a penetrating look at Jack Teixeira, who allegedly shared the documents.
To tell the evolution of reggaeton and the dembow beat, we built a virtual drum machine, allowing our audience to understand the genre and create their own beat.
When the world upends people’s lives, we reach out to share their perspectives in new ways. We did this when college campuses erupted with protests about the war in Gaza, and when we saw that numerous women were posting about their painful IUD placement, or when we wanted to hear how important language is to be Latino or Hispanic.
