News Stories in Photographs
The Big Picture is a site from The Boston Globe which has attracted a lot of admiration from influential technology bloggers, but not because it does anything remarkable with the technology of web design.
It does something outstanding, and very simple. It makes photographs the focus of the site. World class photojournalism, high resolution images. Storytelling through the images and just enough text to provide context and explanation.
The site is the work of Alan Taylor, who is a web developer and a journalist at The Boston Globe. This innovation depended on negotiating permission from rights holders (photographers and picture agencies). On getting an organisation (the paper) to open up and experiment with giving away the good stuff, not low resolution jpegs. Then, including as many shots as the story needs. In the end it is the editorial judgement which makes the form work.
Design, programming, writing, rights negotiator, picture editor. That would be Alan Taylor.