WEEKEND WEB: Newseum Offers Newspaper Front Pages from Around the World
Ever wonder what’s front-page news in another state? How about another country? There’s a Web site for that…
Newseum Offers Newspaper Front Pages from Around the World
Newseum.com features a handy map that easily displays the front page of newspapers from all over the world by simply rolling over dots on the map. Clicking on the dots then pulls up larger, legible versions of the front pages.
While many believe that newspapers are slowly dying (and they might be), killed off by the speed of online news, there’s still something to be said for finding out the day’s top stories by glancing at the front page. Newseum seems to have found a great way to merge the worlds of print and online news by offering these images in an easy-to-browse format.
Much in the same way that it’s fun to surf through YouTube watching quick video clips, it’s a unique experience to flip through newspaper front pages from around the world, getting a quick sampling of what stories are popular in areas that you don’t live in. For example, upon rolling over the map’s dots in Spain, I gathered that there was some kind of historic soccer victory that Spain appears to be proud of.
If you don’t like the map interface, Newseum also offers the covers in gallery and list views. In addition, important front pages are archived, such as those that ran on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attacks on New York.
I don’t believe that newspapers will ever completely die. They may eventually stop being delivered to millions of households, as generations that grew up with the Internet instead of the daily paper get older, but there will always be an important place for “front page news” documenting moments in history.
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This reminds me a lot of an exhibit back when the COSI museum was at its old location in Columbus. I loved looking at the archive of old Dispatch front pages. This is good stuff
I visited the Newseum once many years ago. They had a long wall at the museum showing that day’s front pages. At the time I worked at a newspaper. So as soon as I returned home I worked with the Newseum to get my newspaper displayed on their wall as well. We just e-mailed them a .pdf of the front page and they printed it and displayed it.
Sadly, my old newspaper isn’t a part of this new online version.
@Ricky, Looking through that set of Sept. 12 front pages. The San Francisco Examiner seemed to be just a bit more… emotional, shall we say, than most of the other newspapers seemed to be.