Quick Hit: wtfCNN.com

Apparently, a programmer disappointed with CNN.com's supposed habitual lack of substance in their online news reporting has created a website, WTF CNN?, that simultaneously compares the current CNN webpage with such sites as Al Jazeera English, the BBC, France 24, NPR, China Daily, and a slew of others.

Now, I can't say much about the "suckage" of CNN's online site as I pretty much never view it (or any other online sites for television news stations, for that matter... I'm a newspaper girl), but WTF CNN? does offer a fascinating opportunity to get a sense of what's being emphasized as newsworthy by a variety of sites around the world in one handy little url. It also offers quick access to sites that give a glimpse of the world's view of the US.

That's not too shabby in my book.

In the oft-quoted poem To a Louse, poet Robert Burns notes:
"O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!"

While I've never been certain that I really believed Burns was sincere in that desire (like Phillipa Gordon, I'm sure it would be extremely uncomfortable to have a real sense of what other people actually thought of me), there is something in the notion.

That, if for no other reason, makes the site eminently interesting.

Via.