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Another quick thread on this story. (It's Friday. You have time.) No reporter at the @nytimes has benefitted more than me from the stunning maps/graphics/visuals used to augment stories. So a shoutout to some behind-the-scene folks on this project. 1/x https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/09/climate/redwood-sequoia-tree-fire.html
Last month, I was driving outside of Barstow, returning home from a couple days in the Mojave National Preserve, when @veronica_penney called. She had been assigned to do maps for the story. She led with my favorite question: What would help you tell this story? 2/x
Turns out, while I was off the grid, @veronica_penney had already been in touch with experts to help plot ranges, fire history, severity, all sorts of things. She was ON it. She and @PopovichN created FOUR beautiful maps for this project. Here's one. So thank you to them. 3/x
My photo partner on the road (but separately w/ Covid!) was old pal Max Whittaker, a gem of a talent and person. But when he files all those photos, who edits them? In this case, Matt McCann. He culled them into the selection you see. I mean, look at that front page shot. 4/x
When I filed a draft, I was glad to know that @JessePesta would be the editor. (Follow him on Twitter, climate people.) He's smart, gentle. Among a million little ideas hidden in the text is one bit of verbal punctuation at the end. "Almost." Stop there, he said. Love it. 5/x
The @nytclimate editor is @hfairfield. I've known her since her great work on Snow Fall. Smart, decisive. She liked my idea, then assembled a team. When I saw @iamrumz and @moscowdubai were building the digital version, I knew this would be great. 6/x https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/09/climate/redwood-sequoia-tree-fire.html
All this was managed virtually, of course. We've had Zoom meetings and Slack convos - lots in the last week. @doug_alteen_nyt copy edited it all, to save us from mistakes. And @zagatam designed the print pages. Four inside pages, in full color. (Go get one right now!) 7/x
There are others. Who did this cool homepage video? (Guessing it was @SaManchester). Point is, my favorite stories are ones that start small and build into something memorable, at least for me, thanks to stellar colleagues. I adore them. Thanks for reading, everyone. X/
