In the past year, WUNC producers and reporters have been experimenting with the ways in which we tell stories.
We're creating videos, and making photo essays and running Twitter campaigns. One of our most ambitious projects was a special report, Outspoken: The State of Teaching In North Carolina.
Here are the top 10 most viewed miltimedia stories from the past year:
1. What's Inside This House On Wade Avenue? (January 16, 2014)
There's a house at 3215 Wade Avenue in Raleigh. It looks just like the rest of the houses in that neighborhood. But there's no driveway out front. And there's no walkway to the front door. (Spoiler alert: Turns out, the "house" isn't a house at all.) This video has over 1 million views on YouTube.
2. #TeachingInNC (September, October 2014)
We asked teachers to use social media and give us a snapshot of their lives. By the end of the month we had 1,400 responses, mostly on Twitter. We asked a teacher to review the responses. Her essay is called What Teaching Looks Like In North Carolina. We also asked education leaders across the state to respond.
3. Snapshots Capture Life in Depression-Era North Carolina (November 25, 2014)
During the Great Depression, the federal government sent photographers around the country to meet Americans and document their lives. Those photographers took some 170,000 photographs throughout the latter half of the 1930s and into the 194os. This photo essay is a collection of some of the images from North Carolina.
4. Why Teacher Pay Matters Even If You Are Not A Teacher [Interactive Map] (July 14, 2014)
In 64 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, a local school system is the largest single employer. A local school system is the second-largest employer in 24 other counties. In only 12 counties is a school system not in the top two. This map allows people to explore the numbers visually.
5. Photos of Same-Sex Marriage Celebrations Around North Carolina (October 14, 2014)
This collection of images was made in real-time, becoming an archive of the first same-sex marriages in the state.
6. Listen: How To speak With A Certain Southern Twang (June 9, 2014)
"Hain't dat white rice over yonder a-sittin' sigogglin'?" That sentence is mostly non-sense, but it's also tells a quick and fascinating history of the Appalachian dialect.
7. Listen: This Doctor Tried To Save A Boy With The Ebola Virus (June 26, 2014)
Dr. William Fischer is an infectious disease specialist at the UNC School of Medicine. When he returned from working in Guinea, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, he told this story.
8. North Carolina Teachers Learn About Undocumented Immigrants Through Remarkable Story (Nov. 21, 2014)
In North Carolina, some area teachers have recently been trained to better understand the experience of undocumented immigrants. The training is based on an extraordinary set of photos, taken over two decades, on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border.
9. [VIDEO] Alamance County Dairy Farmer Has Innovative Idea That Might Save Farm (June 24, 2014)
Randy Lewis had an idea that might just save his family dairy farm. Of the 150 dairy farmers in the state, only five bottle their own milk. Lewis figured out how to do it, and not spend a lot of money.
10. NC Photographer Uses Pinup Photos As A Way For Women To Appreciate Their Bodies (September 11, 2014)
Pinup photography gained popularity in the 1940s when glamorous photos of women were made into posters for soldiers to take to war. Now, one North Carolina photographer, Iman Woods, is reviving the technique.
Bonus track: LISTEN: 'Thirsty' Might Not Mean What You Think It Does (September 8, 2014)
WUNC staff mentored six teen reporters during the summer of 2014. The young journalists produced several stories. This one, by Morgan Manson, a rising senior at Hillside Tech Academy in Durham, was listened to the most.
