El Capitan - Fitting a mountain in a web page.

A recent visit to see my parents brought the novelty of having the Sunday papers to read. I can’t remember the last time I bought a Times or Observer, replete with supplements of varying degrees of glossiness and interest.

Indeed, it was a news story that got us talking over dinner but not out of the pages of the Telegraph – it was from the website of the New York Times and their coverage of the free-climb ascent of El Capitan in the Yosemite National Park. Two articles in particular brought the story to life in an inspiring, delightful way:

The Dawn Wall – El Capitan’s Most Unwelcoming Route

A scrolling story of photos and text with a zooming, spinning 3D model of the iconic lump of granite that is El Capitan.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/09/sports/the-dawn-wall-el-capitan.html

The Dawn Wall, Up Close

How do you really give a sense of scale to the vastness of a mountain, without actually being there? Jump into this interactive graphic to see Kevin Jorgensen standing on a narrow ledge and then marvel at the gargantuan lump of rock that’s revealed as you zoom out. Terrifying:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/14/sports/the-dawn-wall-up-close.html

Both of these articles show that online news isn’t just about the ‘moment’; rolling news feeds and updates from Twitter are now our first stop for consuming news events, but these two articles show that web can offer a broader insight in a way that no other medium can. This is the state of the art.