Slug & Lede

MediaStorm is a multimedia website organized by the Washington Post. The media piece “The Ninth Floor” by Jessica Dimmock depicts the lives of several people in their 20s and 30s,all of which are drug addicts, and lived on the ninth floor on an apartment complex in New York City. Squatters turned the floor into a chaotic mess. Dimmock follows these people, taking photographs and audio interviews, for three years.

The piece is structured as a photo slideshow, with intermittent text updating the viewer on what is happening to the persons featured. This, along with audio of the addicts themselves, provides a good depiction of just what they are going through. Hearing it from their mouths gives it a great amount of authenticity. The story itself if very comprehensive and easy to follow-all three elements of the piece complement one another, and certainly work better as a whole than they would separately.

The photography used for this multimedia package is certainly what will grab most people’s attention. Dimmock does not sugarcoat what she sees, and seems to present every photo in its original state. Again, this promotes the credibility of the work, and the photos themselves are dynamic enough to tell a story. They do progress quickly, however, so one needs to pay close attention in order to capture the full spectrum of what Dimmock is trying to present.