People love making and arguning about lists, and the Poynter Institute has come up with a dandy: It wants to compile a list of the Seven Wonders of the Journalism World. Silly and trivial, yes, but great fun.
They propose nominations in six categories as follows:
• Documents (such as the First Amendment)
• People (such as Walter Cronkite)
• Institutions (such as the BBC)
• Events (such as the publication of the Pentagon Papers)
• Technology (such as the invention of the telegraph)
• Works (such as the front page of the New York Times on Sept. 11)
OK, given that, here are my seven, off the top of my head, in no particular order except for the first two:
• The First Amendment
• The New York Times
• Woodward and Bernstein
• USA Today
• CNN
• The Pentagon Papers
• The Web and online journalism
I wonder if they should have split the list, as Seven Wonders lists often are, into Seven Wonders of the Ancient Journalism World and Seven Wonders of the Modern Journalism World. But no, they just want seven, from all eras (and around the world).
As the comments on the story correctly complain, it's not totally clear where you should be submitting your nominations—that still seems to be a wonder all by itself. You might try to start here, which has a giant Seven Wonders link, at least at the moment, that, um, goes back to the story. Oh well. It's still a fun little mental exercise and a great argument for the next time you're hanging around your local newspaper bar (wait--are there still local newspaper bars?).
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