Alternative Story Format: Good or bad?

I've been involved in many heated conversations of the use of Alternative Story Formats in the past few days, so I figured I'd bring the argument to my blog's virtual table. If you wanted to get really specific, you could even argue that this blog is a form of ASF.


1. What is an ASF?

A story in alternative story format does not follow the inverted pyramid rule. Instead, it takes nuggets of information and organizes them in a fashion far far away from the typical story. ASFs can be infographics that are explanatory enough to stand alone. There are also question-and-answer formats (such as the structure of this very blog). Online news sites also utilize photo-story slideshows and interactive Flash documents to tell a story.

2. ASFs seem pretty awesome; why all the controversy?

Well, this is the clencher for me. In my Editing II class, we spent over an hour bickering about this. Half of the class argued that the new Orlando Sentinel format utilizes too many ASFs, and they argue that they are dumbing down content for readers. ASFs are often described as fast-food journalism, and everyone knows that too much fast food is really unhealthy.

Instead of forcing readers to sift through 20 column-inches of text, though, readers can spend 5 minutes looking at a chart or diagram or graphic that tells the story without paragraphs. It's great for today's fast-paced American. ASFs also add visual appeal to the paper, which is important for falling circulation. Similarly, ASFs may be a better choice for many online venues. Much of today's news is gathered through the cell phone, and some cell phones only offer 14 lines of text. In this case, an ASF may be easier to read.

3. Where can I find more examples of ASF stories?

These days, they are everywhere. There's a huge one on the Orlando Sentinel's front page today (this page requires Adobe PDF Reader). There is an accompanying article, but readers can decipher the meat of the story just by looking at that huge map of Florida. The information given by the ASF shows readers that the black early vote is really high (22 percent). Readers gather enough just from the picture. It does help to read the article, though. This is the best form of ASF for this transitory period: offer an ASF and an accompanying traditional article. That way, everyone gets the best of both worlds.

The Sentinel isn't the only paper boasting alternative story formats. One of my favorite ASF stories can be found on the New York Times site. The reporter wrote a story on creating a life list, a list some people are publishing online depicting specific things they must do before they die. The article has appeal because the author headlined the article "Ten things to do before this article is finished." He numbered the constituents to the structure of a news article and applied them to the list.

The Sun Sentinel did an overly simplistic ASF to depict the presidential candidates' views on the most popular topics including jobs, the bailout, gas and veterans benefits. Instead of simply reading an article that would presumably cover a little bit of everything, readers have the freedom to click on the issues that are most important to them.