Let's face it, for online journalism any content management system that doesn't offer the possibility to add hyperlinks or embed multimedia content directly into the body of the text needs to be quietly packed off to the archives for the big sleep.
Still, they are plenty of media outlets using their same old CMS and my sympathies are offered to journalists working on them. But frustration often leads journalists to take matters into their own hands and go "off the reservation" to find more pleasant digital lands in the form of off the shelf blogs such as Wordpress. Perhaps not such a bad thing... why wait for something to happen if you have ideas for a multimedia reporting project?
However, if your CMS offers you a few tricks, maybe something more could done with the humble hyperlink?
I'm sure the deep thinking web designer set and code crew have been pondering such things far longer than your correspondent. Innovative ways of making multimedia within a page more dynamic or interactive is certainly already on the way with tablets and the iPad.
I'm actually thinking of something quite simple - a blend of style guide and multimedia. We can already produce a hyperlink in bold, italics or underline, or in different colours (maybe your media outlet has a style guide for applying hyperlinks?) So, why not use a specific colour or type of text to indicate to readers that there's something else going on there apart from linking through to more information on another page? For instance, a red coloured hyperlink on a key word might indicate that part of a story is live - say a link through to live-streaming video from a reporter. Or, it might indicate that the reporter has just updated that particularly point raised in the story with new information - a tweet, photo or a short Audioboo update.
Here's another possibility. Perhaps 'a slightly different shade of colour' in a direct quote might indicate to the reader that the hyperlink contains raw audio or video from the interview that was the source of the quote. A pop up, hover or active mouse-over function might be a useful tool in these cases - immediately playing the content when your mouse or finger rolls over that word - no actually clicking though. It's function that you often see on lots of websites or in flash presentations.
It's also common to see media websites adding value to a story page - by either embedding a clip or including related links at the bottom of a text story or in margins is a common practice. Depending on a website's CMS I sometimes find it a little bit of a chore to scroll all the way down a page to find links.
There is of course an aesthetic quality to consider as well. Is it pleasing to the eye and easy to read?
I wouldn't want to see, let alone read a text splattered with so much colour that made it difficult to read. But maybe a few well chosen hyperlink features might warrant an experiment or looking at your online style guide for hyperlinks in a new light.
Outside of flash presentations, I'd be curious to see any journalism examples of where hyperlinks or pop up hyperlinks are doing a little more on a page than linking through to more content.