Ugh...as someone who worked as a developer in the news industry...I don't believe that fancy interactive graphics and video have a chance to save a text-based company. What is necessary for journalism companies to survive is not only good content, but good process...and if you have a staff accustomed to producing text pieces, you will not have the pipeline necessary to do the "cool" web stuff...And even if you did, those things would not save you, even when done competently.
Case in point: The New York Times produces visuals and interactives at a level that is the state-of-the-art; not just in the journalism industry, but in any industry. But there hasn't been much evidence that their groundbreaking work has made a significant impact in declining revenues.
As evidence, I point out that NYT's current strategy is to bet much more heavily on video, massively increasing its video production (and presumably, video-ad-producing) department. However, according to this Columbia University survey (http://videonow.towcenter.org/), not a single newspaper organization has yet made a profit off of video, and video has been part of news websites for almost a decade.
This is not to dismiss the talent at the Times...it's very possible, for example, that their web interactive group can produce dividends...but that will be because of a focus on developer process and digital strategy...not simply because they produced a few highly popular features.
That said, I'm not suggesting that if New Republic stuck to what they do now, that they'd make a profit. But as they say, jumping from the frying pan into the fryer is not really a survival strategy.