The special feature is officially up and live at www.stripes.com/armynavy.
It has been up for a few days now, but I finally have some time to discuss it a bit. We currently have four stories/features, an audio slide show, several photos and quotes from people at the academies and fans. Each day we’ll be adding more content, and Saturday will be a big day for content (multiple stories, multiple photo galleries, audio, maybe some audio slide shows, etc).
Tomorrow, for instance, we’ll be doing our second audio slide show. The first one was of the Navy cheerleaders and band running through the halls firing up their supporters, while they played music and chanted. Some important Navy people also briefly spoke after the Midshipmen came to their offices for special visits.
It’s one of those experiences that is very hard to describe. Imagine a pep ralley on steroids through the halls of the Pentagon. Imagine a pep rally where you got to taunt your emeny.
The Navy cheerleaders and band roamed several miles of Pentagon corridors, causing quite a ruckus. They made sure to let the Army people know that Navy has won the past five games.
The juxtaposition of such a serious building with the pageantry and color that is Army-Navy is almost comical, but it’s powerful nonetheless. It’s pretty amazing to see how into the game everyone is at the Pentagon. I thought about writing a story and putting some photos with that, but I realized that’s not the best way to tell this story.
Writing a story sure would have been easier, but you need to hear and see what happens this week in the Pentagon. I could tell you about it, but a lot of people wouldn’t believe me. Or they’d think it was minor.
It was really loud and peppy. It really reminded me of a high school pep rally. There was an innocence and fun to it that most college pep rallies can’t capture. And my ears still hurt from following Navy around for an hour.
Tomorrow, I get to it all over again, this time with Army.
This is one of those projects that pushes what I can do. I’ve written stories, taken photos, captured and edited audio, designed a site, created an audio slide show and coded (X)HTML, CSS and Ajax. That’s what online journalism is all about.
You got to do needs to be done. I don’t enjoy doing all those things equally, but it was the only way for this package to be done right. I really wished I could have done video, but that was out of my hands.
The special feature is important for my paper. We’re Star and Stripes. This is Army-Navy.
This is our story.
We own it.
