You may have noticed that the newspaper as we know it, is an endangered species. I’ve written about its demise multiple times (and the demise of record companies and other media companies with buggy whip business models being stressed by the appearance of cars…) I digress.
In any case, this link was sent to me last week by one of my old buddies and I think it’s a really cool way to preserve some of the good of the print monoliths while bringing them into this millennium. It’s a live map that shows the front page of any print newspaper (no reason it particularly needs to be print) across a geographic area super-imposed upon a map.
The two differentiations I can see that will keep papers around are depth of coverage and analysis by trained journalists sensitive to bias adhering to a code of ethics when writing and local coverage that isn’t sufficiently interesting to be picked up nationally or globally (though that pick up likely fuels the future business models of the locals.) In other words, these aggregations of local papers into syndicates is the exact opposite of what needs to happen to ensure transformation to the new world.
In any case, Newseum is a nifty little visualization tool and in playing with it, brought these thoughts to the forefront. Try it out, it’s kind of fun.
HT: Bruce
Tweet
