Time-lapsing the New York Times Home Page

Phillip Mendonça-Vieira ran an errant cron job that ended up taking two screenshots of the New York Times home page every hour from September 2010 to July 2011. The fortunate result of the mistake: 12,000 screenshots of what the Times felt important for its home page.

Phillip writes that most publications don’t save their frontpage layout data and if the printed newspaper ceases to exist, society will lose key historical snapshots of the every day.

Via Phillip:

This, in my humble opinion, is a tragedy because in many ways our frontpages are summaries of our perspectives and our preconceptions. They store what we thought was important, in a way that is easy and quick to parse and extremely valuable for any future generations wishing to study our time period.

Notable moments: Chilean miners at 0:39, Arab Spring at 3:38 and Japanese Tsunami at 4:54

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  1. nhmortgagebroker reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  2. matthurst reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  3. jara-mae reblogged this from asadchishti
  4. anotando reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  5. evgenynitsenko reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  6. kerengoldshlager reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  7. myneedlesswords reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    To me, it wasn’t just watching to see what was newsworthy or historic on certain days. This movie was a great example of...
  8. mekrizzia reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  9. asadchishti reblogged this from photoj and added:
    neat idea! I don’t reblog often but this time felt compelled to share this.
  10. photoj reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    What a great idea. Every newspaper should be keeping copies of their home page!
  11. nataliamanda reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  12. journo-geekery reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    Wow that’s fun. Now I want the same for our Cover over time.
  13. jaketbrooks reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    Not only is this interesting as a matter...historical record, but design, too. Notice how...
  14. ovisuals reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
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