At one point in history, the only way to tell a story was either word of mouth or through pen and paper. Television did not exist, and the only way to get a portrayal of an event was through a creative imagination.

Today, not only does television give the pictures, but the Internet can take those pictures, and use visual affects, sound and writing to tell the story a journalist is attempting to convey. A perfect example of this is in the Roanoke (Virginia) Times "Hellgate 100k Ultrarunning Competition" feature.

http://roanoke.com/multimedia/hellgate/interactive.html

Here, they use an interactive visual affects map to plot as well as describe each spot in the course. The writing itself is detail oriented and straight forward, leaving little room for creativity but informative. Horton's explanations are helpful.

As far as using the photo-video-reporting approach to telling a story about a person or event, I think it would be beneficial especially for an event. That allows for an in depth look at an event, breaking it down to give interest to the reader and showing why, statistically it is useful.