Our Somali project opens our eyes
I've been crazily busy over the last week, mainly working with my team on the launch of our investigation into the murder of Somalis in our community. This was a huge undertaking for us and involved some four months of work as reporter Thanduxolo Jika and photographer Theo Jeptha got under the skin of this story.
The project worked out better than I anticipated - and reaction to the series and, in particular, to our online presentation has been tremendous. To be honest, I never anticipated a strong reaction but for me it was one of those stories that journalists just need to pursue, as I explained in a front-page commentary when we broke the story.
Our website traffic hit a noticeable spike when we broke the story and for the first time we produced a special online front page - much as we would do traditionally in the paper. We took a risk here not knowing how it would turn out but it seems to have been just fine.
Screengrab of our web front page of last Tuesday. Click for a full, higher-res image
I'm awaiting sales figures for the edition as well and am curious to see how that edition was received by our readers.
There have been some very moving comments on the website as people have reacted to the series which was a real learning experience for all of us involved.
For the first time, I think, we have begun to understand how to tackle a story and exploit the power of the web as a storytelling medium. Rather than simply do an online package as a "value add" to the print component we tried to find ways to add depth to our coverage using the internet.
We used google maps to try add a spacial dimension to the story and some sort of context to some of the events that we reported on. This free tool is incredibly powerful and we'll be using it more often on other projects and also in our day-to-day coverage.
We used Dipity to create an interactive timeline which worked out well too.
The one online component which has elicited a lot of feedback is the diary Jika and Theo produced as they lived with Somalis in Mdantsane for a couple of weeks, recording their experiences. I think this is a powerful online technique which we'll want to use again in future.
I'm proud of what my team achieved in this project and it seems to have made a difference in how many of our readers view the subject of refugees and migrants. As an editor managing the project it really exposed me to some truths about the profound stories that exist in our community and which we need to take time out to explore properly.
I must also thank Birgit Schwarz who suggested the idea and the Taco Kuiper Fund for Investigative Journalism at Wits which funded it.
Watch the site and the paper for the next couple of weeks as we continue to add to this initial coverage.
