Final Salute

This piece brought up for me the greatest strengths, weaknesses and trapfalls of "converged" online reporting.

I went onto the site and at first I was overwhelmed by the amount of information on that start page--stories of various types, ads, "helpful" site navigation tools interfering with my experience of the story. "Ok, I just need to dive into one of these so I can experience it."

I click on the story link. Same clutter. The moving story in the center, ads pasted on the left side, ads on the right and that same "helpful" navigator, all cluttering up the story. I read down, but really I didn't go past page 1 (of 10 or so) because the presentation felt so distasteful.

I go to the audio slideshow. After a few false starts trying to get the audio right, the story unfolds. I'm reminded what the real cost of war is, what it means every time a soldier dies, in a way that I haven't since a high school friend, also a marine, was killed in the first month of the war. I feel stupid for letting the war become just another issue instead of the concrete event it is.

I think of all the stories there must be every time someone, anywhere, dies. This story of grieving, seeing the casket, first in the funeral parlour, then being carried, brings back to me my grandfather's funeral, what it was like carrying his casket over ice and snow, in dread fear of falling.

I'll feel privileged if I can bring a story to someone in such a real way as a journalist.

Wow, converged reporting is great. This is amazing that I can experience this powerful story whenever I want to. This story couldn't be told this way in any other medium.

Back to the main page. "Oh, I see they have the story that was cluttered up with ads in PDF format, as it was originally presented in the newspaper. Great, I can see read this story the way it was meant to be." Click. "Acrobat 5.0 has encountered an error and needs to close down." (Damnit.) Click again. Same. Click on another link and this time it loads.

"Wow, this page is beautifully laid out. This is the story as it was meant to be. Now I can read this story without the obnoxious ads. This must've been what it was actually like in the newspaper--I wonder what it was like to read it in the actual newspaper. At least now there aren't any ink smudges."

Back to the main page. Try the 2nd page again--I guess Acrobat is working now.

"Acrobat 5.0 has encountered an error and needs to close down."

Damnit, I give up.