Thread by @bottidavid

This week our @nytimes Visual Investigations team published its longest piece ever: an in-depth account of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol - the capstone to a large body of work on 1/6 by this team. I want to tell you a little more about this as a whole. nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/…

Those early days in January were, of course, intense. Our team immediately set about collecting countless videos of the attack as they poured in. Even just organizing them was a feat unto itself. There were many unknowns, but soon our reporters began piecing things together.

On Jan. 11 an early story focused on how the rioters brutalized law enforcement officers who were under-equipped and ill-informed about the threat that was coming their way. nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/…

On Jan. 12 we collaborated with the graphics desk to publish a timeline focusing on the hours when President Trump’s rally gave way to the advance on the Capitol.
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

It was around this time that we decided to set our eyes on something much bigger: analyzing this day minute-by-minute, from beginning to end. But that would take months. New evidence was surfacing each day and we needed to cover it.

On Jan. 13 we looked closely at the iconography on display among the rioters to better understand just who they were — and what drove them. nytimes.com/2021/01/13/vid…

We then found protester Rosanne Boyland in some of the footage. It showed the moment she was trampled by the mob, while her friend cried out for help. She was later pronounced dead. Published on Jan. 15. nytimes.com/2021/01/15/us/…

Meanwhile, some of our reporters set to work trying to understand the presence of organized far-right groups at the Capitol attack; first tracking three Oath Keepers through the crowd in a Jan. 20 piece. nytimes.com/video/us/10000…

On Jan. 28 we added to our reporting on Boyland's trampling after obtaining police body camera footage of the scene. nytimes.com/2021/01/28/us/…

We also continued to build out our reporting on the Oath Keepers; finding and tracking more of them. In collaboration with the NYT graphics desk, we published this piece on Jan. 29. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

The reporting on Oath Keepers eventually led to a connection with Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was guarded by several of the militia members on the day before the attack. This piece was published on Feb. 14 — again with colleagues on GFX desk. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

At one point we obtained access to D.C. police radio communications from Jan. 6. We analyzed and sync’d this audio with footage from the day. The result was a brutal look at what police faced; told in their own voices. Published on March 22. nytimes.com/video/us/10000…

One of the enduring mysteries for us was what happened to Officer Brian Sicknick who died soon after the attack. Finally, we spotted him and obtained exclusive footage that showed how rioters attacked him. Our findings published on March 24. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

All the while the Visual Investigations team was continuing to report out threads large and small, and working them into what would become our full investigation.

You can view that investigation here, along with a list of our key takeaways. nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/…

I'm just so damn proud of this team. Here's a link to sign up for our Visual Investigations newsletter: nytimes.com/newsletters/vi…

Stories by: @heytherehaIey @evanhill @trbrtc @malachybrowne @whitney_hurst @DrewJordan_NYT @robinnyc7 @dim109 @therealDahliak @markscheffler @arielle_designs @singhvianjali @AllMattNYT @nytmike @NatalieReneau @CoraEngelbrecht @_stella_cooper @btdecker @LaurenLeatherby @dwtkns

PS. During all of this, several of these reporters worked on stellar investigations into North Korean oil smuggling, an insurgent attack in Mozambique, police violence in Colombia and airstrikes in Gaza. All work collected here: nytimes.com/spotlight/visu…

Missed one byline credit: @tiefenthaeler reported on the Jan. 6 iconography story too. Best person for the job on that one.