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Longform journalism was feared to be one of the first casualties of the digital age as the news industry struggled to adjust to falling advertising revenues and the rise of social media.
But recent years have seen a rise in new approaches to digital storytelling, harnessing all the multimedia elements made possible by the internet to give readers an experience traditional platforms of print, radio or television would not be able to provide alone.
At the BBC, features editor for BBC News Online, Giles Wilson, has been central in commissioning the broadcaster’s recent spate in longform, immersive stories – from mysterious Icelandic murders, to the horror of the Rwandan genocide and the iconic history of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer.
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