When a gunman opened fire in a Wendy’s restaurant on Monday, March 3, 2008, here’s how the Palm Beach Post covered the story online.
By J. “Bart” Bartosek, editor, The Palm Beach Post
This infographic was the centerpiece of the story. Click on it to go to a live version.
The week of the shooting, multimedia journalist Gwen Berry lined up interviews with several of the victims and thought there might be an opportunity to showcase the video from within a Flash graphic rather than the usual media player.
We decided to use the existing print graphic as a base so we'd be able to get it posted before the weekend.
The idea was to use the graphic of the Wendy's interior and provide clickable links for each witness that would launch a video of that witness' account. Users could step through the events beginning with the shooter's entrance.
Online editorial director Clay Clifton pitched the idea to graphic artist Steve Lopez, and graphics editor Chris Smith said Steve could use Friday to work on it. Gwen shot more witness videos on Friday. Video editor Vada Mossavat cut audio clips of the 911 calls. All of this content was delivered to Steve Lopez midday Friday and he got to work on the graphic.
There were some technical issues and Steve wound up handing the production over to Gwen late Friday. Gwen finished it up and posted it by 6 a.m. Saturday.