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The Federation of European Journalists (FEJ) reports that it is worried about the "modernization" of news provider the Agence France-Presse (AFP) and wishes to discuss the issue with French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

On April 11, the $450 million Newseum will open its doors to the public for a $20 admission fee. Located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., the Newseum will hopefully "provide visitors with a memorable - and informative - experience," according to Charles Overby, the Newseum's Chief Executive.

"The purpose is not to create a shrine glorifying journalists or replicating a reporter's DNA on white walls," said Overby.

The Newseum first opened in 1997 in Rosslyn, a business neighborhood in Arlington, VA, which did not attract many tourists, thus the Freedom Forum, the nonpartisan foundation that Overby heads, worked on bringing a grander version of the museum to D.C.

The Newseum includes more than 250,000 square feet of exhibition space spread through seven levels, a 50-ton marble tablet displaying the First Amendment, a chunk of the Berlin Wall in the Cold War newsgathering exhibition, and a September 11 exhibition. The Source, a restaurant run by chef Wolfgang Puck, is attached to the museum.

"It's somewhere unapologetically between the Smithsonian and Disney World," said Overby.

Each morning, the Newseum staff displays front-pages of newspapers from all 50 states and about 20 countries along Pennsylvania Avenue.

There are also many interactive activities for visitors: a chance to play television correspondent and trivia games (including solving newsroom dilemmas about ethics).

The Newseum does have its critics. Ana Marie Cox said, "Journalism is one of those things where it's hard to find totems to represent the history of journalism. The history of journalism writes itself."

ABC's Washington bureau Chief George Stephanopoulos said there's no museum that "can capture the actual making of the news, the actual craft of doing the job, but it can shed light on the history and sacrifices made."

Source: Politico (first photo), Newseum website (second photo)

In August 2007, a European newspaper aggregator venture, dubbed Imooty.eu, was launched in beta version (read background here, based on a profile by the Online Journalism Review). Over the weekend, Imooty has launched a new headline aggregator widget for newspapers to implement on their sites (pictured left - see their widget platform here).

Imooty's "plan is really to develop a powerful tool for news syndication," said co-founder Kristoffer Lassen (who founded the site with Blaise Bourgeois). "The purpose is to democratize access to the most important mainstream information sources of Europe." The site now aggregates RSS feeds with latest headlines from about 450 newspapers in 19 European countries.

Imooty.eu, a newspaper and blog aggregator

Unlike services such as Factiva or LexisNexis, which are geared towards professionals and have costly fees, Imooty aims to provide a mainstream and free news search resource. Newspapers' RSS feeds that are featured on the homepage are generally chosen for their prominent size and influence, but sometimes also for their known expertise in a particular domain (Morgenbladet in Norway for its 'Culture' coverage).

Users can conveniently view latest headlines by country, newspaper, or category of news. A tab enables users to view recent blog headlines - about 700-800 have enrolled so far. Users can also customize search fields by these same criteria.

Does it still make sense to distinguish 'News' and 'Blogs', at a time when some blogs do original reporting and some traditional news brands are turning to lighter, blog-style news?

"It's basically to make a distinction between news brands as we know them today and independent reporters," said Lassen. The line between both may be getting blurry - especially concerning newspaper blogs, but Lassen believes the news consumption and expectations are different between blogs and news sites, although both may be news.

Pros and cons of Imooty for newspapers

Imooty has launched a specific section called 'Newspaper Universe', so that partnering newspapers can directly upload their feeds and customize them. "You decide how your newspaper brand will appear on the  Imooty platform."

Pros:
- Reach: Imooty "puts newspapers in touch with users who normally wouldn't use them," said Lassen. Through Imooty, readers who are geographically distant, or on the other side of the political spectrum, can discover new titles.
- Mobile: Imooty offers a mobile platform that can be of interest to newspapers.
- Revenue share: Imooty's revenue model will be based on redirecting readers to newspapers' premium (archived) content, and it will share revenues with papers.

"Cons":
- "I can see how, under the old news paradigm, some newspaper people might feel threatened by the model, because it's possibly taking away from local focus. But then again, these are new times, and people relate to media in different ways," said Lassen.



No editorializing, unlike major online news portals

News featured on the homepage is ranked by 'clicks' for individual newspapers and recency for headlines: there is no editorializing of content or of the RSS feeds by Imooty. But as Lassen said in his OJR interview, "readers now demand concise information that directly addresses their personal "need to know" requirements in an age when people are swamped by news sources." So why not give readers editorial guidance?

"That's the role of the big Internet brands. Google does this, by editorializing their pages," said Lassen.

"Our philosophy is to show the user the way news is from the different publications. We don't editorialize. The purpose is to give a panoramic view of what's actually out there."

News aggregation and Imooty: a resource for news professionals

In that respect, Imooty may be of greater use to news junkies or journalists than to the general public, at least in its first steps.

"You really have to be a news-interested person to be interested in Imooty, but it can be a starting point for ordinary news users as well."

"A lot of people like to have a pre-packaged news product," said Lassen. Although the trend towards news aggregation is increasingly visible, newspapers' role is also to provide their news judgment to sort news in an organized manner.

Future developments

Imooty is working to develop its multimedia offerings, including its mobile platform, podcasts and IPTV. According to Lassen, "this is also the direction newspapers are going in," because text-based content will be less prominent on mobiles. Imooty has launched a mobile site in beta.

According to Lassen, Imooty now has about 15,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views monthly.

Imooty is still in full development and is still in the process of signing on official newspaper partners. This weekend it launched its imooty headline aggregator widget, which can be implemented by news sites that wish to open up their doors to other relevant sources.

Source: Kristoffer Lassen, co-founder Imooty.eu

As newspapers increasingly open up to an international audience and a ‘globalized’ culture, they must respect their traditional style guides while embracing contemporary talk. The Guardian’s readers’ editor explains how the paper’s policy has evolved towards Americanisms.

A new Boston freesheet called BostonNOW is planning to bring pro-am journalism to print by including local bloggers' content alongside professional reporting.

The Knight Citizen News Network (KCNN) launched today. It is a free web portal designed to help citizens and journalists learn how to create and operate community news websites.

Newspapers’ transition to the online world – which has been reportedly slow apart from a few exceptions – has been graded a disappointing ‘B-‘ by Steve Outing, interactive media reporter for Editor & Publisher. But he also digs out a few solutions. The challenge, as he puts it, is to transform the traditional newspaper into modern media while keeping a sufficient cash-flow to provide quality journalism.