$10,000 Grand Prize: New York Times Body of Work

Debate Analysis Tool

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/first-presidential-debate.html

New York Times

Andrew DeVigal, Gabriel Dance, Tom Jackson, Shan Carter, Matt Ericson

The New York Times created this tool that allowed users to watch 2008 presidential debates and speeches on demand with the transcript scrolling simultaneously alongside. Users have the option to search the text or jump to a specific part of a speech or debate to find topics most important to them, something that cannot be done with video alone. The project is easily replicable for future debates and speeches.

Document Reader

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/04/world/africa/20090204-nazi-documents.html

New York Times

Aron Pilhofer, Ben Koski, Alan McLean, John McGrath

“Document Reader” allows readers and news organizations the freedom to post documents of all sizes in a clean interface that allows searching, book marking, comments, and annotations (reporters can highlight and annotate passages they found important). Document Reader is part of the related project called Document Cloud and ProPublica (partners) are beta testing Document Reader on its site, which if the project goes well it will be launched in late summer or early fall. They have published 77 documents since March.

Other examples:
http://documents.nytimes.com/c-i-a-reports-guidelines-for-interrogators#p=1

What One Word Describes Your Current State of Mind?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/04/us/politics/20081104_ELECTION_WORDTRAIN.html

New York Times

Gabriel Dance, Andrew Kueneman, Andrew DeVigal

On Election Day, NYTimes.com users were asked to answer a simple question: “What One Word Describes Your Current State of Mind?” And they were given an opportunity to state whether they voted for John McCain, Barack Obama or neither. Then the NYTimes took hourly snapshots of their responses. The responses were presented in the Word Train; the more popular the word, the larger it appeared in the train, the longer it stayed on the screen, and the slower it moved.

Living with Less

http://projects.nytimes.com/living-with-less

New York Times

Juliet Gorman, Amy O’Leary, Elliott Malkin

The New York Times created the “Living With Less” project in recognition of the need for people-focused coverage of the recession. The page showcases in-depth video and audio portraits of real people whose lives have been upended, taking readers inside a motel room that houses a family of six, or a foreclosure court where stunned defendants wonder about their next move. Their repository of reader-contributed content—more than 78,000 user contributions and interactions with the project’s features—is a “living history of the present turmoil.”

Custom Times

http://nytlabs.com/customtimes/

New York Times

Michael Young, Alexis Lloyd, Ted Roden, Nick Bilton

The New York Times created a prototype called “Custom Times” which offers users a personalized version of The New York Times that seamlessly transitions across multiple platforms: print, web, mobile, tv/living room and the car. The goal of Custom Times is to provide a rich, engaging news reading (and watching) experience that anticipates the user’s needs across devices and environments. Custom Times consists of a interactive newspaper box, a personalized web site, a mobile web site, a TV application and car integration.

Represent

http://prototype.nytimes.com/represent/

New York Times

Andrei Scheinkman, Derek Willis

Represent is an interactive feature on nytimes.com that helps New York City residents keep tabs on their elected officials. Represent culls information from dozens of sources across the web into into a Facebook-style activity feed localized to an individual reader. Represent determines a reader’s elected representatives at each level of government—from their local community board up to the U.S. Senate—and provides maps to show how their address fits into the political geography of the city. The application then generates a feed specific to the elected officials representing that address.

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