200 moments that transformed journalism

PoynterOnline has created an interactive graphic that chronicles 200
moments that have transformed journalism in the past decade.

Poynter Library director David Shedden created the list.

Many are drawn from research compiled for Poynter’s “New Media Timeline,” a resource that tracks developments from 1969 to the present.

PoynterOnline blogger Bill Mitchell writes:

“Not all of Shedden’s 200 moments are as consequential as his first entry for the year 2000 — the acquisition of the Time Warner media empire by that once feisty startup known as America Online.

“As Shedden reports, that deal would eventually be described as one of the biggest corporate failures in American history, with the destruction of more than $100 billion in shareholder value by the time AOL and Time parted ways near the decade’s end.

“If your experience of the moments is anything like mine, you’ll find yourself marveling at milestones missed when they occurred. Did you know, for example, that at some point in 2004, content surpassed communications as the leading online activity?

“Some of Shedden’s moments, like Apple’s introduction of its iTunes store on April 28, 2003, seemed to have little to do with news at the time. By the time news organizations staggered across the decade’s finish line, though, more and more analysts were studying Apple’s disruption of the music industry to understand the collapse of journalism business models.

“As NYU professor Clay Shirky has famously observed, the problem with most revolutions is that the old stuff gets broken more quickly than the new stuff gains traction.

“You’ll find ample evidence of that in Shedden’s collection. But you’ll also find signs of media reinvention and regeneration, an often messy substitution of old means of gathering, presenting and consuming news with replacements that are getting those jobs done in new and often promising ways.”