Picture This
In my search of the New York Times website, I found a slideshow titled "The Frugal Traveler Sails the Caribbean." The pictures on this slideshow range from a shot of the sun reflecting off the ocean, to a scene of a meal eaten aboard a ship.
Now, when searching the Times' website, there was no shortage of multimedia to entertain. Truly, I have no trouble understanding the presence of videos and audio clips, which could not be shown in the paper, but at first I was puzzled over the slideshow, pictures that could've been included in a publication.
It didn't take long for me to get a better grasp on the "why" of slideshows. First, while some people who read the New York Times may visit the website, the site can also be viewed by those of us who do not have such lofty reading habits, so even if the pictures could be included in a paper, the audience is also made of those who would not know if the pictures were there or not. Secondly, there were 12 pictures in the slideshow. That's a little excessive for one story, where room is limited. On a website, if one has 12 pictures he/she wants to include, space is not such an issue. Viewers can capture the beauty of a Caribbean trip in 12 photos instead of one.
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Katie Vann on Picture This: Good point Josie. Space isn't
Good point Josie. Space isn't as much of an issue online, especially when it comes to pictures. Sometimes when I'm browsing through news online, I find it easier to open a slideshow with short paragraphs at the bottom than to try to read through an entire article, especially if I'm interested in only parts of a story.
It's great that those 12 pictures didn't have to go to waste. Like you mentioned, there's only so much space in a print paper, but so much more online. I was also wondering though why the slideshow existed and where the story was. When I think of the New York Times, I think of articles, not pictures.
I see how they reach out to include those people that aren't all about the text, but would those people visit The New York Times in the first place?