Tag: New York Times

The New York Times launches crowdsourcing tool for identification of old ads

The New York Times opened up its vast archive some time ago with the launch of TimesMachine, an open archive where readers can browse old issues from 129 years of the paper’s history. But the TimesMachine lacks one ability and that is to search old advertisements, since these have not been scanned and identified. In other words, it is nearly impossible to find old ads without browsing manually through old issues.

To solve this, the paper now launches Madison, an online tool where readers are invited to help out by finding, tagging and transcribing ads.

NYTads

“We have 163 years of what is often referred to as the first draft of history, and I think one of the areas we’re interested in is finding new ways to bring that archive to life,” said Alexis Lloyd, creative director for the R&D Lab.

Further reading:

“Why The New York Times built a tool for crowdsourced time travel”

“The New York Times is building a new TimesMachine”

New York Times in unusual media culpa over Iraq coverage

The New York Times today had a healthy and unusual article (free registration required) about its own coverage of the Iraq war.

“Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.”

Some parts of the coverage the paper is not happy with, and that includes for example trusting sources like Ahmad Chalabi or people close to him.

“The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on “regime change” in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks.”

A sample of the coverage is online at nytimes.com/critique.