Many journalists entered the profession for a simple reason - a love of storytelling.

And the enjoyment of a good narrative is something that appears to be hard-wired into the human brain. See the Scientific American article on "The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn."

Many fear the Internet threatens to wash away the narrative in a sea of information and raw data. Younger people in particular are said to lack the attention span for reading in-depth stories and are turned off by long and complex narrative.

But the reverse may actually be the case. A 2008 study of 18 to 34 year olds by Context-Based Research Group found they suffered from"news fatigue, meaning they were overloaded with facts and updates and had trouble connecting to more in-depth stories. Participants yearned for quality and in-depth reporting, but had difficulty immediately accessing such content."

Rather than undermining the traditional narrative, the Internet should be viewed as an opportunity for more in-depth, multi-dimensional storytelling that people crave.

Space constraints that limit the amount of information a journalist can convey in traditional print media do not exist on the Internet.

Different aspects of stories can be told in different media formats - text, video, audio, photo slideshows, graphics - to make storytelling more engaging.

The best multimedia storytelling on the Internet combines these two elements - deep information on a particular topic presented as a multimedia package, with each part of the overall story told in the type of media most appropriate to it.

Check out these examples of multimedia stories.

Or spend time viewing the multimedia packages on these sites:

• Interactive Narratives from the Online News Association
• Kobre guide to the Web’s best multimedia & videojournalism
• Best of Multimedia Design Winners - Society for News Design
• Online Journalism Awards - Online News Association

And read our tutorial on Multimedia Storytelling to learn about how to put together a multimedia presentation, and our tutorial on Picking the Right Media for Reporting a Story on how to take advantage of the different characteristics of video, audio, photos, text and other media forms.