As the ripples spread from Chicago’s latest corruption drama, the community news site Windy Citizen is trying some innovative, fun approaches to online coverage and commentary. They did this using free online tools that any news organization or independent journalist can use.
Blagojevitter: This page tracks, in real time, Twitter updates that include the terms blagojevich or fitzgerald. This page is a widget from Monittor, a free service that offers a fairly slick interface for custom Twitter tracking. Monittor widgets are slightly more complex to configure and install than ordinary widgets, but it’s not rocket science. Windy Citizen editor Brad Flora then selects particularly important or interesting items to “retweet” (pass along) via the WindyCitizen Twitter account. (Example from this morning.)
Blagojevich complaint word cloud: The graphic was created with Wordle, a visualization tool that analyzes text and turns it into art. Here, the source text was the 78-page official complaint against the Illinois governor. In a word cloud, the biggest words appear most frequently in the source text. Even though word cloud images are static, not interactive, this approach can provide insight into a document — even on a subconscious level. For instance, this image makes it obvious that the Chicago Tribune is a significant topic of the complaint. Plus, word clouds are attractive, intriguing, and fun.
…And, of course, Windy Citizen set up a Blagojevich blog.
Which other sites or services are using online media creatively to present news and commentary about this controversy? Please provide links and info in the comments below.
