Reeves Wiedeman

This American Life’s ‘Giant Pool of Money‘ is still the best explainer out there on the credit crisis – and its spawn, NPR’s Planet Money, is the best day-to-day summary for everyone like me who is still confused.

But this video is freakin cool:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The graphic design is beyond me, but a great example of how to combine a whole bunch of mediums – with a narrator – to explain something clearly and concisely.

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Three photography links from The Guardian (All via MetaFilter):

- A history of Guardian photography. Only 15 photos to cover 100 years? Let’s pick up the pace.

- Ditto on this slideshow of acclaimed Guardian photographer Don McPhee – ditto on the complain, though it’s picks up in the second half. Note on both these how much more enjoyable the slideshows are with two narrators bouncing off each other.

- And a cool story about a photograph.

This is a cool set of pictures – identical scenes from Leningrad during the siege and St. Petersburg today, photoshopped together. The images aren’t perfectly executed, but it’s a great idea.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

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Pushing political policy is little more than storytelling, and the Obama administration appears to be going beyond podium speeches and Sunday morning talk shows to tell its story. Here’s a slideshow from Whitehouse.gov on ‘The story of the economic recovery package.’ I have my quibbles – the pictures aren’t that great, and strangely grainy – but it’s a good and interesting effort. It’s propaganda (note how many Republican senators appear with Obama), but it’s the story from their side and it’s good that they’re telling it. This probably won’t convince anyone to support the bailout, or Obama, but it helps the administration develop a narrative at the very least.

Your random enjoyable photo series of the day: The World’s 15 Strangest Buildings.

One correction: the Kansas City Public Library at No. 6 is actually the parking garage across the street. Stranger.

Update: Thanks to justinmoss for making the change.

Two purposes: to point out Michael Lewis’ great profile of Shane Battier in the NYT Magazine, and to point out the epic fail online.

No graphical attempt at showing some stats, the point of the piece?

No interactive shot chart for seeing, say, how good certain players are from different spots on the floor?

No video footage of Battier playing defense?

Just about the only interesting multimedia piece is the photo spread on Battier’s shot-by-shot Kobe-stopping – which you can find in the print version. The options were limitless with this piece, especially considering the NYT’s ability and penchant for online experimenting. Fail.

At least they own the Globe.

Oh, and the article is great.

This is an awesome use of different media to supplement a series of lengthy pieces on Ted Kennedy. Boston.com gave the package big play yesterday and reasonable play today, driving traffic to a package that . A few innovations that aren’t new, but that Web sites should use more:

- Releasing this seven-part story over seven days online, rather than all at once. Give people a reason to come back and check your site everyday.

- Not limiting the multimedia to photos or even video. Pull quotes, old front pages, and documents (in this case, letters), are all underused in online stories.

- Presentation. This is the first time I’ve seen other media linked down the side to the corresponding part of the article. It gives the feel of reading a magazine piece where the art actually coordinates with what you’re reading.

- Selling out. The whole package is part of a push to sell a book about Ted Kennedy by the Globe staff. I’m all for it – if it pays for good journalism, sell it.

Here’s the best photojournalism of the year, until the Pulitzer’s have their say. Impressive, and well worth clicking through the gallery.

My favorite photo: El Diario on gang violence. Devastating.

My favorite story: Time Magazine on the economic crisis. Covers it all.