The Grenfell Tower fire

The Guardian’s multimedia guide of what happend at Grenfell Tower

On June 14th Grenfell Tower a tower block in west London burned down. In the article “What happened at Grenfell Tower? A visual guide” The Guardian takes the reader through the facts of the event. Because the piece was published in the early aftermath of the terrible event it is primarily a quick overview of the incident and a graphic explanation of why the fire might have escalated so rapidly. It is an example of well executed multimedia journalism because it uses a combination of different media types to tell a story build on facts before any extensive knowledge of the event was presented to the press or the public. Especially the visuals in the article are well made. The grey color behind the headline would have been more powerful if there had been a picture from the scene of the fire. The grey color gives the article a dull beginning which is unfortunate.

Picture from the article of the fire at Grenfell Tower on June 14th 2017

In the photo seen above animation and photography is put together to create a presentation of the actual scene of the fire while at the same time explaining the buildings construction. The text in the picture tells the stories of people jumping out and screaming for help. The arrows in the pictures help make these stories more vivid and increase the horror of the incident.

It is a short piece and easily read. The readers are presented to a lot of facts regarding the building and a lot of information in short sentences. There is however little focus on the people affected. In the video half way into the article there are two video clips where people living in or nearby the building tell their stories of their experiences of the fire. The video is put together of different types of video clips. There are videos shot with a phone camera, overhead shots of the burning building and clips from the fire brigade’s press release. The video uses captions to tell the story of events but it would have benefitted from a better audio side. A voice over even just reading the captions would have given the video a human voice and thereby human side to the story. Otherwise quiet background music would have helped create a feeling suited for the horrific images. The missing audio gives the video a strange empty feeling as if something is missing.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/14/what-happened-at-grenfell-tower-london-fire-visual-guide

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