None of you is probably quite the newspaper freak that I am, but you could still have a lot of fun at the Newseum's "Today's Front Pages" site that I link to on my blogroll. A search function is coming soon, but already there are some interesting features. There is, for example, an analysis of the day's front pages. The one for yesterday, surprise, surprise, notes that a lot of newspapers had a lot of photos of American flags. You can go to a list or a map to get the region you want to zero in on. Here are five of the 11 Indiana newspapers that are featured on the site, including your favorite Fort Wayne morning and evening newspapers. Click on the images to enlarge to get a quick overview of how different editors make different choices.
You'll notice that there are always common themes -- such as yesterday's flag and fireworks photos -- showing that editors are pretty good at capturing the broad themes their readers might be interested in. But there are also a lot of quirky choices based on the ebb and flow of local circumstances. Newspapers might represent a dying breed, but they are still groups of news-chasing people who try to collect and transmit the information they think is important or interesting. Those collections, in community after community, will be missed if they are gone.
A related site some of you might not be aware of is Slate online magazine's Today's Papers, which provides a recap of how events of the day are covered by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times,USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
