"Women in their own words."

The New York Times published a slideshow detailing quotes from eight women interviewed about their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each slide portrayed a photograph of the woman on duty and her quote. The script on the side described that individual woman's position in the military, her time and duration on tour, and the largest cause for her PTSD.

While the quotes in themselves are powerful, I am not sure the layout of the show was entirely effective. To utilize these quotes only in a slideshow when they are so powerful on their own, seems almost a sensory overload. The Times would have been better standing alone with a attribution and photo. The background information on the speakers merely complicates the quote, which is the largest focus of the show.

In this case, less would be more. Placing a photo next to the quote and leaving out the back story might be more effective because we, as readers, are always trying to draw conclusions and connections between characters and text in a story. It's natural for us to do so, and would probably engage us to think more clearly about the powerful and pertinent focus that this particular slideshow really entails. With the background information, I get stuck swimming around in it and forget to focus on the theme and intent of the story itself.