'When you're surrounded by something constantly, it stops surprising you': The Washington Post Magazine experiments with storytelling through poems, songs and board games

The Washington Post Magazine released an alternative storytelling issue, featuring stories in innovative formats like song, poetry, graphic novel, three-act play and even a board game.

"One of the things we wanted to do with this creative storytelling issue was to restore that sense of surprise to journalism,” said Richard Just, editor of the Washington post magazine.

At the centre of the issue is a song created for the magazine by singer-songwriter Ben Folds. Titled “Mister Peepers,” it describes the predicaments Rod Rosenstein has faced as deputy attorney general

According to Just, an unconventional format can help readers to see a saturated topic in a different light, as it is often the case with politics.

"We knew a good chunk of this issue would be political,” said Just. “That's why we did Ben Folds’s ‘Mister Peepers’ song, the Pinsky poem about James Comey or the Betsy DeVos board game.

"But the magazine also takes very seriously the idea of Washington that's more than just a city of politics.”

A board game in which readers can play as Betsy DeVos and attempt to survive her first 19 months in Washington

Hence, this issue also included a restaurant review by food Critic Tom Sietsema, that was featured as an annotated menu with hand-written comments.

Food Critic Tom Sietsema’s restaurant review as an annotated menu

The creative storytelling was also converted into a print magazine. Just reckons will help drive traffic to Washington Post Magazine website because physical magazine readers will need to head online to listen to the 'Mister Peepers' song.

"We hope this feature will surprise people and will give them a different way to look at the news that they are reading every day,” concluded Just. “Beyond that, we hope readers will come back to the Post magazine as a source of long form journalism and creative storytelling.”

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