Slug & Lede

The Girl in the Window

The stench of urine, cigarette smoke and the crunch of cockroaches underfoot highlight the beginnings of Danielle’s life. Her adoptive parents know little of her past, but the damage it caused is manifest, impeding every facet in their lives.

The St. Petersburg Times has covered the story, combining testimonial with candid shots of Danielle and her family. Most prominently, the narration of Sheriff Mark Holste compels the audience, pushing the seemingly horrid stench of Danielle’s childhood home right under your nose. An ubiquitous cockroach infestation adds a new dimension to the disgust.

Lane DeGregory and Melissa Lyttle, the slideshow’s producers, illustrated this level of disgust well through black and white photos. Utilizing Black and white allowed the pair to employ busy photos, accentuating the contrasts of feces, urine, and cockroaches against the mundane and expected aspects of the home.

Breaking from this, a color video explodes in the middle of the show, shattering the monotony and humanizing Danielle. However, the issue lies in this monotony. Each picture sits on the screen far too long, inciting restlessness and a yearning for the video to end. Sadly, this detracts from the incredible tale that is Danielle, the feral child.

On the other hand, doing the piece as a slideshow retains a certain timelessness and pace that works for the story. These contribute to the power of black and white and as video there could have been a multitude of other issues. For instance, the piece may have been too loud with Danielle’s outbursts and lack of social skills detracting from the gripping commentary.

However, the story’s commentary could have been better. In hindsight, an emphasis on Danielle’s past could have further vested the audience’s interest, broadening the story’s pathos. Pictures of Danielle with audio accomplished this to an extent, but so few pictures of her childhood home left a want for more. Additionally, the audio of the sheriff was easily the warmest so extending that entire section would have been an excellent improvement.

by Kevin Rutan

The website for the Las Vegas Sun is nothing special when a person first accesses the site.  The sites tab button is orange, and is the only color contained on the whole home page.  I felt that the site was confusing to navigate at times because the headings never caught my attention.  When I scrolled down I often became lost because I did not know what was a video, a slide-show, an interactive piece and more.  I also found it interesting to note that the home page does not contain much information about news around Las Vegas.  The first thing popped into my mind when I saw the site is that it was devoted more towards sports.  There is a large “All In: The Vegas Sports Scene” logo on the top half of the first page.

The sports dedication part is interesting because it is filled with videos from the site.  However, some of the videos are not particularly well done.  Some of them contained too much back ground noise or not enough.  Also, some of the interviews with players were not shot using the correct method with the person to the left or right of center.  Some have the subject directly in the middle.  I would have liked to see it done the right way because it would be easier to follow and I would not feel as if the person being interviewed is talking directly to me.

It took some navigation on my part to understand what the site was really devoted too.  The site contains many interesting topics, but a person has to click on the tab they are interested in.  I like how the “news” section of the site gives a lead and a small nut graph to describe what the article is about.  These little details help me to decide if the article is worth reading or not.  Another interesting item in that section is the headlines.  The headlines are in bold and easy to understand. The photos in the section are also a positive, in that they help to tell the story through a visual aspect.

One of the best things about the site is the interactive part.  It is not terribly hard to find but takes some navigation to locate.  The part about prescription narcotics is interesting and engaging.  However, the map is shaded to emphasize how each state is categorized with prescriptions per person.  I found it hard to differentiate some of the colors and often had to look at the key to figure out the map.

The site contains a lot of multimedia references in it.  I wish it would be easier to navigate because it would make searching a lot easier.  Also, the way in which items are put together can be confusing and wrong.  It would have been better if a little more time was put into the pieces because at times I felt like I was critiquing more than watching and interacting.