Look Ahead: Increasing Visibility

In front of many stores it’s easy to spot a newsstand, where printed on the side in bold lettering is the newspaper’s name. However, this isn’t the case with many digital news sites.

Matt Carroll, research scientist at the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab

Enter Matt Carroll, research scientist at the Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab and Catherine D’Ignazio, an assistant professor at Emerson College and research affiliate with MIT, creators of NewsPix, a Google Chrome extension that enables news sites to become more visible to audiences.

“A big problem for digital newsrooms is letting readers and viewers know that, yes, they exist and are doing good work. People often don’t remember to visit digital news sites because once they are out of sight, they are out of mind,” Carroll said. “NewsPix subtly reminds people that a great newsroom exists, and you really should check out their work…It simply, effectively illustrates the good work they really should—need—to check out.”

NewsPix is simple. After downloading the extension on Chrome, click open a new tab, and rather than seeing a blank page, a newsworthy photos from the local newsroom will appear.

Catherine DIgnazio, assistant professor at Emerson College and research affiliate with MIT

With NewsPix, a newspaper’s website can gain back some of the attention social media has largely taken over. This is especially useful for smaller newspapers said Carroll, a former Boston Globe reporter.

Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation (who funded NewsPix) said they wanted to focus on smaller newspapers because many local newspapers have been hit harder than national brands such as the New York Times or Washington Post.

The greatest challenge with NewsPix so far has been the technical issues. Currently, NewPix only works on Chrome, but Carroll said they’re working to extend the extension to Firefox.

At the time E&P spoke with Carroll, he said the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel was the only official newspaper working with NewsPix.

“NewsPix is aimed at getting people more engaged with their news, and we hope we can achieve that goal,” said Cecily Weisburgh, assignment editor of the Sentinel. “People get their news in many different ways these days, and we hope to continue trying to reach people where they are.”

According to Carroll, the Sentinel has about 165 active users. “An excellent number for a small news organization,” he said.

“We’re very excited with how well it’s going with the Sentinel’s site (sentinelsource.com)…those readers have seen about 30,000 impressions of Keene pictures. That’s a big number,” Carroll said.

Carroll, D’Ignazio and the NewsPix team are also working on rolling out a mobile version of the browser extension. Newsrooms interested in working with NewsPix can contact Carroll at matt54@media.mit.edu.