I think they are beautiful to look at, and perhaps they are smartly built. But personally they make it so much harder for me to absorb the actual content. In the climate change example, the text is large and framed in isolation from the other elements, to the point that it's difficult for me to parse the overall context of the article. The Joni Mitchell article is a bit better, but the text on the right is squished to the point that it feels stressful to read. I understand the goal is to frame the image on the left, but it feels like overkill.
When it comes to news I prefer the content to malleable and customizable (accessibility, content size, color pallet). I don't mind that these experiments exist, just pointing out that they are a bit anti-web in my opinion.