Salon.com

Salon.com has a good idea for online journalism. The online magazine site has weaved in the best advantages of the Internet and traditional media. It would make a good homepage for Internet users interested in news and commentary.

The homepage uses the traditional front page format with a large dominant photo and surrounding stories with interesting headlines. Then the site takes advantage of both the bar across the top and the bar along the lefthand side, unlike many sites that put the same content in both locations.

Along the top, users can choose a section, such as news and politics, opinion and community. This is the usual format for a news site. Along the lefthand side, however, the site separates daily, weekly and feature content. This allows readers to choose what level of coverage they look at. Also, along the right side are Associated Press wire stories for breaking news. Salon.com offers access to the latest news as well as in-depth stories and commentary.

The search engine is right at the top, allowing readers to navigate the site through search terms, but there is also an article database that can be searched by topic and date.

I like the personal aspect of the page. The site displays the most popular stories as well as the stories that resulted in the most letters to the editor. There is also a community section called The Well where readers can discuss topics. The aesthetics of The Well look dated and the posts are sparce, but the idea could grow into something more interesting. There are also various topics to discuss on the other Salon.com community, Table Talk, which has a slightly better visual appeal.

Contra

United States hegemony has pushed another Latin American country into the support of a nemesis of the Bush administration.

Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega defended the right of Iran to develop nuclear technology against the “impressive dictatorship” that the United States has imposed over the world, according to The Associated Press.

Ortega ranted about United States imperialism and global capitalism at the United Nations General Assembly meeting Sept. 25 that was supposed to focus on climate change.

Ortega led the Marxist Sandinista-run government in Nicaragua 20 years ago before he was ousted in elections held as a part of a peace agreement in a civil war fueled by American dollars and arms.

He was re-elected in November after an election campaign in which he sought to calm apprehension about his Marxist past. But he has formed ties with both Iran and Venezuela, visiting Iran in June.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has continued to strengthen an alliance with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after warning the U.S. against military action in Iran in May 2006.

Ahmadinejad headed to Venezuela last week after a stop in Bolovia, where he found his most recent ally against U.S. power, according to BBC NEWS.

Morales pledged to work with Iran “from this day on,” saying that the country will not accept the idea that “the strongest prevails,” possibly referring to the United States.

It seems U.S. dominance and strongman foreign policy have led countries from different regions of the world to establish a common goal of independence from U.S. power.

Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega summed up his perception of the United States:

“The presidents of the U.S. change. And they may come to office with the greatest of intentions and they may feel that they are doing good for humanity, but they fail to understand that they are no more than instruments of one more empire in a long list of empires that have been imposed on our planet.”

French fried

Manuel Noriega, declared a “hot potato” by one Panamanian paper, seems destined to land in France to face another decade of jail time.

The former dictator of Panama finished a 15-year sentence in a Miami jail on Sept. 9. Not long before his release, his lawyers moved to appeal a judge’s decision to extradite Noriega, 73, to France, where he is wanted on money-laundering charges.

Noriega’s lawyer in the United States, Frank Rubino, questions whether the United States has entered into an agreement with France and Panama, according to BBC NEWS.

An editorial in Critica, a Panamanian paper, expresses the concern that groups in the United States and Panama are “buying time.” The article says that neither country wants to have the “hot potato” in its hands so close to elections.

The paper predicts the ex-general will not arrive in Panama until at least after May 2009, when the country’s elections will be held.

Noriega awaits charges in Panama for the murder of former political opponents. Under Panama law, however, he may be placed under house arrest because of his age.

Though he now sits in a cell in the United States awaiting extradition to another cell in France, Noriega was once an asset to the two governments.

Noriega helped the CIA in its war against communists in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s and received the French Legion of Honor Legion d’Honneur in 1987.

Meanwhile, the United States ignored his participation in the Medillin cartel, led by the infamous Pablo Escobar.

Then a Congressional committee report forced George H.W. Bush to pay attention, leading to Noriega’s capture, trial, sentence, and possible future in France.

Leading in

Media have changed.

Though the Internet opens an endless space for words, sounds and images, it also leads to many of those ending up in a hole with no one to ever see or hear them.

To prevent that from happening, news sites have started to adopt shorter headlines that focus on how a search engine will find them. A blurb then attempts to pull them into the next page.

In general, The New York Times followed this model today on its homepage.

The headline, “Wall Street Extends Rally After Fed Move,” could use some work, though. Fed should be earlier in the headline because people are likely to search for that term.

BBC NEWS masters the art of headline and blurb writing. The headlines are loaded with searchable terms. Many have six or less words, making them short and direct. The only inconsistency is in the tense in which the headlines are written.

The headline, “Lebanese MP killed in car bombing,” places the more important noun up front causing the sentence to be in past tense. However, it could be improved by somehow using the term Lebanon because people are more likely to search for the noun rather than the adjective form.

There is not a set-in-stone style for the content of Web sites. It seems that reputable sites have accepted certain standards in order to keep people clicking and lead them in.

Drug lord unseated in Colombian coup

Colombian police have captured the man said to control a  network responsible for 70 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States and Europe, according to BBC.com.

Diego Montoya, commonly known as “Don Diego,” was arrested in a farm house in the province of Valle de Cauca after a raid by about 200 troops diverted Montoya’s Los Machos, who are responsible for around 1,500 killings.

Montoya, listed as one of the FBI’s “10 Most Wanted,” controlled the Norte del Valle cartel, of which many top members have been captured or have died. A notable exception is the at-large Wilmer Alirio Valera, known as “el Jabon” (the soap).

A report in the Vanguardia Liberal, a daily newspaper in Colombia, said though the capture closes a chapter in the history of the cartel, “the war continues.”

Some speculate a civil war among other drug barons for control of the cartel’s routes and cocaine laboratories.

According to the paper, Valera may stand on one side against Jorge Iván Urdinola Perea, known as “the Iguana.” Perea is a visible leader in Los Machos.

Though the capture of “Don Diego” will be seen as a victory of the government under President Alvaro Uribe, it may just result in the coronation of another cocaine king.

After all, it took Montoya less than three years to gain control of “the jewel of the crown” and to be considered the successor to Pablo Escobar, whose drug network grew to an empire before his death in a shootout in 1993.

CNN.com

Many people head to CNN.com for its recognizable name. It may keep people there with its easy-t0-navigate format and clean appearance. RSS feeds, e-mail alerts and CNN Mobile can also bring visitors back each day or even more than once a day. Users can also bring along their friends with the ability to e-mail a story.

 Some aspects of the site are interactive, including the poll down the right side of the homepage and the ability to contribute to CNN.com’s I-Report. For example, readers of the Hurricane Gabrielle story are invited to send in video and photos of the storm. Visitors can also post comments on the blogs, but the link is small and hard to notice.

 One interesting aspect, considering CNN.com’s role as a national news source, is the section on the homepage designated for local news. There is a box to enter hometown zip code in order to get local news and weather. This appears to give CNN.com an advantage over other national news sites; however, once a city is selected much of the news listed remains under national coverage, with a couple links to local news sources.

This idea could help bring traffic to smaller local news sites, such as those of newspapers and television and radio stations, if the site linked to more locally focused issues and more sites. It would also benefit CNN.com. Visitors may use it as a news homepage and then link to their local news sites bringing traffic to both.

In terms of appearance, the site is clean and easy to look at. However, the long list of latest news headlines is overwhelming and not easily scannable. It may be better to list only a few headlines from various areas and then link to those sections. The headlines themselves are not easy to scan with the first two terms often not including specific information about the article.

CNN.com seems to improving its usability and appearance, but there are some changes to be made.

Roanoke.com

Roanoke.com, the news site for The Roanoke Times, one the Online News Association’s award for general excellence on a medium site in 2006.

The site has an attractive appearance as well as a navigable design. The tops stories are listed to next to the main story for the day, and more stories in specific areas are listed further down the page. One questionable aspect is the story in the upper left corner, which had been listed by the Eyetrack study as not ideal.

The site has a high level of interactivity. The site lists “Latest blog entries” and “Latest blog comments,” although those lists could be higher on the page. The current feature on child obesity also has an interactive quiz. The site also has an on-demand aspect with the stories listed under politics, health, business, etc. and an ability to sign up for an RSS feed. The site also has many multimedia aspects, from a slideshow featured in the top story to a top video listed for the day. Further down the page, the site lists stories through their pictures.

 Most interestingly, the site has a tab for About Roanoke, which includes important local data for residents. After working at a sister paper of The Roanoke Times this summer, I know Landmark is trying to incorporate this type of aspect into its Web sites to draw more people to the news site away from typical local directory sites.

Overall, the site has a good and easy-to-use design.