Upending the basin (and animating it, too)

That little animation you just saw to the left of this text is pretty cool for a couple of reasons.

The first is for what it does rather simply.

The Upending the Basin logo is meant to communicate Echo’s desire to explore journalism and the Great Lakes environment from nontraditional points of view.

But it is surprising how few people  recognize the Great Lakes basin when you stand a static image on its ear like this.

Lifelong Michigan residents are baffled when they see their state’s mitten in anything but an  upright position.

“That’s just wrong,” someone once told me after I explained the image.

But when animated, the image reveals with greater clarity what we’re trying to accomplish. It is a subtle yet important solution to a communication problem.

The other reason this is cool is that the idea came from Tyrone Rooney, a geology professor here at Michigan State University. I had sent him this link about our East Africa effort because he studies the geology of the Rift Valley.

He emailed back that he liked the logo accompanying the piece. And when I explained that some people found it confusing, he responded, “This might help.”  And he attached the animation now at the top of this page.

Why is that interaction cool?

It’s yet another example of how journalists now get help from unexpected places.  Readers not only add content, they can help convey knowledge in an interactive medium.

Those collective efforts can be confusing, even misleading. Have you ever read the comments at the end of a controversial news story?

But readers also represent a collective wisdom that is an immense resource for journalists.

One of the challenges today is sorting that wisdom from the confusion. That’s another nontraditional way of thinking about how environmental journalism should work.

Want another?

Columbia Journalism Review recently wrote about Echo and similar attempts to build an environmental news community around the water that unites them.

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