I’ve had lots of negative things to say about Slate lately, so this time I’ve got some positive comments about the publication. Slate is making good use of many of the multimedia tools that make online journalism vastly different from other forms of media.

In an interesting twist, that includes audio, which was the focal point of a piece I read this week entitled ” Close Your Ears!, The new radio horror proves that listening to a gory scene can be more terrifying than watching it.”

The story combines traditional Slate style copy but includes bits of audio from a new radio drama series being produced by New York city horror film director Larry Fessenden.The dramas feature character actors like Ron Perlman and Vincent Di’Onofrio to produce what are essentially old time radio dramas, but with more modern production techniques.

I don’t particularly like the way they have the audio set up.The author uses weird audio buttons to give you access to various programs and it’s hard to tell which one you are looking at. However, it does let you listen to snippets of the programs.

Still, it is more interesting visually than some of Slate’s other offerings. As I have noted in the past I also enjoy some of the video that this site does and I love the photo galleries. This is the kind of thing that Slate does very well.

On Slate’s front page I also continue to really like the juxtaposition of text and photos. While it can sometimes look a bit “busy”, I really think it is different from anything else out there.I  think the magazine might look at something different than its current 3 column layout, but layout is for another post!