“The Wall: Unknown stories. Unintended consequences.” is a Pulitzer Prize winning multimedia series from USA Today Network and Gannett that delves into life along the southern border of the United States – the same border where President Donald Trump proposes to build his wall.
“The explanatory report, led by then Arizona Republic’s vice president of news and editor Nicole Carroll, recently named editor in chief of USA TODAY, provides an in-depth look at the border through immersive technology, including aerial and 360-degree video, virtual reality, bots, drones, documentaries, photos, podcasts, and LiDAR data,” says USA Today promotional material.
When The Wall received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, the Pulitzer Committee said it won “for vivid and timely reporting that masterfully combined text, video, podcasts and virtual reality to examine, from multiple perspectives, the difficulties and unintended consequences of fulfilling President Trump's pledge to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.”
Instrumental in the success of this project is Annette Meade, Senior Project Manager – Storytelling Studio USA TODAY Network and Innovation Director at Gannett Innovation Lab.
The USA Today Network explains Meade’s role as “…to bridge the space between digital development and content creation to help produce top-level and engaging story experiences.”
Meade recently talked with the Spectrum Podcast and explained how this major journalistic project was conceived and brought into reality. She also touts the virtues of multimedia and immersive storytelling as a way of putting the audience in the middle of the story being covered instead of being a passive reader or watcher on the periphery.
She believes the interactive and immersive storytelling are the wave of the future. No longer can major stories be told in just one manner but instead multiple media formats and innovations are required.