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Al's Morning Meeting

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Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'


*1. For anyone looking for a year-end project, consider this one from the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. The paper put a face on every person murdered in Rochester for the year. Stunning and simple use of multimedia.

*2. The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times produced a fascinating story that sheds light on how easy it was to defraud the banking system during the housing boom.

*3. Watch a simple but telling video essay about how immersed children can get while playing video games.

*4. The Rural Blog discusses what failing auto companies mean to rural communities.

5. Salon investigates "Friendly Fire" incident that leads to document shredding.

6. Seven key questions about a car company bailout.

7. The Flip Cam has gone HD with a customizable cover.

8. A fun video to help you with digital conversion.

*9. In a weird way, I dig this photo essay on abandoned Christmas trees.

*10. The Atlantic sits down with China's Gao Xiqing, who oversees $200 billion of China's $2 trillion in dollar holdings. The lesson to the U.S. is "shape up."

11. You thought sub-prime lenders were gone? No way! They are making FHA loans.

12. Planet Money is a really good blog about money and finance.

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.


Millions of Historical Documents Available Online
Longtime Al's Morning Meeting contributor Jim Sweeney, managing editor of SIGNAL Magazine, flagged this story to me.

The National Archives announced
last week that it has teamed up with Ancestry.com to make millions of historic documents available for free online in celebration of Memorial Day. Here is some background on the initiative:

Since 1998, Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed millions of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) records to create the largest collection of NARA records online. The collection now includes more than 750 million names and 70 million images in census, immigration and military records, among many others. Click here to see the collections. Search the more than 540 million names included and you could find invaluable information about your ancestors. You may also want to check out the U.S. Federal Census Collection.

Find your family's heroes in the world's largest online collection of military records, which includes more than 80 million NARA records from all major U.S. wars and conflicts.

You can search for: Many more databases are available here.
Posted by Al Tompkins 12:01 AM
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