Analysis: LA Times & Star Tribune

The Los Angeles Times features mostly links to other stories. They provide large photos with most stories which are put at the top of the page, between the headline and the copy.
A few links are used in the story to more broad topics that the story doesn't cover. Outside the article there are links to related content and articles that are completely separate from the story.
They also have a section for videos which are usually linked from articles.
The Star Tribune applies the same method of attaching photos to most stories and sometimes adding video which auto plays when you go the article.
Both sites have share icons at the bottom of the stories for facebook and twitter. This helps by getting it out to more readers.
There is very little writing in attached to multimedia and when there is it's small and to the point.
This advances the story by offering communication through a different medium. In some ways it just attracts eyes because a wall of text is very unappealing but it also adds more to the story instead of just telling it a single way.