Snowfall’s biggest achievement is using multimedia in a way that isn’t forced. Each element used by The New York Times either adds emotional weight to the story or helps readers understand what exactly happened. Videos and pictures give voices to those who were saved and faces to those who perished. But most importantly, being able to scroll through the written text and see blips on a 3-D image of Tunnel Creek pop-up makes the story easy to follow. If the events were described in words only, it would be easy to gloss over and not understand where exactly all the skiers were located leading up to the avalanche. The 3-D map makes the story easy to follow; plus, scrolling down helps build the drama.

Often times, multimedia doesn’t complement stories but instead repeats a story in a different form. This provides readers multiple ways to consume news, ideally delivering it to readers in their preferred medium. And that is all well and good if that is what a news organization is striving for.

Snowfall, though, demonstrates an intricate story conceptualization, requiring journalists, programmers, designers and editors to work together in a way that doesn’t do double work.

This type of storytelling seems to be most effective in explaining events where timeline is extremely important, geography matters and emotion plays a role. Features covering battlefield events, crime stories (think O.J.) and disasters such as an avalanche.