Link to article: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/30/world/africa/meet-armless-table-tennis-champion/index.html?hpt=wo_t3

This article from CNN – unlike the “5th Blog Post” – is the epitome of a mutlimedia article. It’s an incredible story of an armless man who plays table tennis (at a high level) by putting the paddle into his mouth.

The article is three-fold: 1) Pictures. There are six photos. Like anyone has probably noticed, putting photos at the top of an article is typical. It immediately can show the reader what he or she is about to read. This is much more effective when the photos are interesting. Like in this case, the pictures being of a man hitting a ping pong ball with a paddle in his mouth is going to instantly grab the attention for a viewer.

2) Article. There are very few multimedia pieces that do not have an article. The piece is not extravagant, it’s straightforward and tells the story. In essence, it’s not poorly written at all but it’s not a full-length profile piece.

3) Video. There is a video piece, that again, is not extravagant but tells the story. Without a real full-length profile article the video sort of fills in any blanks as far as a need to see the action in action. This video reminds me of something my J 463 professors have told me, which is ‘good content will beat good video.’ This is not a statement to make bad video but if the content is worthwhile, then most viewers will let it slide.