What if you could experience a story with your entire body, not just with your mind? Nonny de la Peña is working on a new form of journalism that combines traditional reporting with emerging virtual reality technology to put the audience inside the story. The result is an evocative experience that de la Peña hopes will help people understand the news in a brand new way.

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Watch

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Glossary

• blow your mind –  to be amazed at something
• push the envelope – to move beyond the limit of what has usually been done or was the accepted standard
• half-baked – not fully thought through; lacking a sound basis
• collapse – fall down and become unconscious as a result of illness or injury
• seizure – a sudden attack of illness, especially a stroke or an epileptic fit
• tapestry – a piece of thick textile fabric with pictures or designs formed by weaving coloured weft threads or by embroidering on canvas, used as a wall hanging or soft furnishing
• tap into something – to manage to use something in a way that brings good results

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Think about it

Answer the questions below. Pause at times indicated in brackets. 

• What effect on people did Nonny want to achieve as a journalist? (0:40)
• What feeling did Nonny want to communicate to her readers? How was she trying to achieve this? (2:18 / 3:53)
• How were people reacting to the VR film? (4:30)
• What was the second VR news project? (5:27)
• Where was the second project presented to the audience? What were the people’s reactions? (6:45)
• What are the challenges when creating VR news pieces?

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Practice makes perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the correct forms of the words in CAPITAL LETTERS.

What if I could present you a story that you would remember with your entire body and not just with your mind? My whole life as a ________ JOURNAL, I’ve really been compelled to try to make stories that can make a ________ DIFFERENT and maybe ________ INSPIRATION people to care. I’ve worked in print. I’ve worked in ________ DOCUMENT. I’ve worked in broadcast. But it really wasn’t until I got involved with virtual reality that I started seeing these really ________ INTENSITY, authentic reactions from people that really blew my mind.

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Fill in the blank spaces with the missing words. Use ONE word per blank space.

So the deal is ________ with VR, virtual reality, I can put you on scene ________ the middle of the story. By putting ________ these goggles that track wherever you look, you get this whole-body sensation, like you’re actually, like, there. So five years ________ was about when I really began to push the envelope with using virtual reality and journalism together. And I wanted to do ________ piece about hunger. Families in America are going hungry, food banks are overwhelmed, and they’re often running ________ of food. Now, I knew I couldn’t make people feel hungry, but maybe I could figure ________ a way to get them to feel something physical.

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