A look at how publishers and creators across media are leveraging archival content to deliver more meaningful stories
Having overseen digital archive projects at The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Aperture, Aviation Week, and Maclean’s, I can share with confidence a basic truth about magazine archives: however compelling, or not, you may find the current issue of a given title, its archive is a treasure — a contemporaneous record of human efforts and interests, an idiosyncratic cross section of history, the genealogy of a sensibility.
In our thrilling and chaotic media environment, notions of legitimacy and authority have been upended, and too often the churn of hot takes drowns out deep reporting and context. Archival content wields great power against both of these trends, and more and more publications and content creators are figuring out how to mine that precious resource. National newspapers have launching history-oriented verticals, magazines are adding complete digital archives to their subscription offerings, and a growing number of popular podcasts trade on narratives from the past.
I will walk participants through this promising trend, framing the growing universe of archival storytelling with inside stories of archive creation, a survey of resources online and off, and an open exploration of story models and best practices.
(This could be adapted to fit into a variety of tracks, including Storytelling, Tech, Product, and even Revenue. Let’s discuss!)
Suggested Speaker(s)
- Matt Dellinger
Freelance, Author and Digital Archivist (The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Aperture, Maclean's)