In the early years of online publishing, newspapers – the old guard of the journalism world – viewed digital platforms solely as a means to replicate print, which still partly explains the lagging state of the industry.
However, digital content has shown its vast potential, and the old belief that netizens have the attention span of a hyperactive gnat is clearly outdated when we take a look at some of the amazing longform pieces that have been created purely for digital publishing. “I think that there is an accepted consensus that stories have to be told in an innovative way to get attention in the web based era,” says James Hill, a Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist and contributor to the New York Times.
Digital content: a different experience
While there are of course digital editions of print newspapers, there are few good reasons why their digital counterparts can’t do something that offers a genuinely different experience for the reader, engaging them differently and making the most of the capabilities that online offers. Where journalists are embracing the potential, the results are often breathtaking. Especially when they also take the audience's news needs into account.