Multimedia

The internet has created a forum for all kinds of crazy people to express their crazy ideas very easily, to the masses. If you browse around youtube.com or myspace.com you can find some pretty wild stuff, but the new technologies introduced to journalists has not been all bad.
This fact is especially evident in the field of Photojournalism. The internet has completely changed the face of Photojournalism making the job description include: taking photos, recording sound, being literate in flash, and being very good at all of them.
Photographers at every major newspaper are producing slideshows that bring you into a story. they will usually have one or two photos printed, but have about a two-minute slideshow, with audio of the same story online.
A newspaper that is setting an excellent example is the LA Times. By viewing the Photographs portion of the website, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/photography/ you can check out a variety of different slideshows by a variety of staff photographers, and the slideshow of the "Week in Photos."
Rick Loomis uses the slideshows brilliantly to capture personal moments, and give you shots that can almost explain the entire scene without cutlines, or audio, but having them adds to the experience.
A story can inform you. A photo can make you understand a story. But a slideshow can change your perspective on an issue. They can make you feel that you have actually lived through an experience. In Rick Loomis' "Saving the War Wounded," he documents the hours of a soldier's life immediately following being wounded in Iraq. The slideshow will make you realize what people are going through everyday while we complain about parking, homework and cell phone reception.
Another photographer, Don Bartletti, takes on the always controversial topic of immigration, but from the perspective of the border patrol, and the immigrants, in "Border Crossing."
You can always find slideshows on the LA Times website along with the NY Times and mostly any other major publication. Even the Bakersfield Californian's website has slideshows by awesome photographers like John Harte, Casey Christie, and Felix Adamo at http://www.bakersfield.net/photography/slideshows/.