Have you ever watched a story on a television newscast and heard the reporter or anchor suggest you visit the station’s website to find an extended interview or an interactive graphic that wouldn’t have played well on TV? That’s an example of multimedia journalism, a collection of complementary storytelling techniques used together to tell a cohesive story delivered online. Multimedia packages can include any mix of text, audio, video, interactive databases, interactive maps, social media, user-generated content and games to both inform and entertain simultaneously. 

After completing this lesson, students should be able to:

• Explain how a multielement story package can tell a more complete story

• Determine appropriate use cases for different types of multimedia such as text, photos, video, information graphics, etc. 

• Match a story with the best storytelling techniques to reach an interested audience

• Create a plan to produce a complete multimedia story