In terms of visual design and graphics what are some of the best looking / modern news websites on the web today?<p>Also are there any news websites that get the balance between ads and content right in terms of layout and graphic design?
I really don't like most news sites. The average site like Guardian or Fox News is just "meh." CNN's "above the fold" is okay, having image thumbnailed stories and then a text-heavy list on the left side. That said, I don't actually "like" it. The pictures don't actually convey what the story is about, just a general "Oh, hey, dude standing in front of fire. And an Osama story." But the layout itself isn't bad.<p>Is there any reason the NY Times doesn't recreate their front page on the website? I mean, the "top fold" concept ("everyone, this is the big story,") is pretty much directly applicable to the web, after all.<p>The "blog" approach is wearing thin, (especially among aggregators) and the "top rotator" that so many sites use is pointless at best, and goddamn annoying usually.<p>But, all of that said, Google News is my homepage. newsmap.jp is no stranger to my browser either. Maybe I'm a sucker for flash (the concept, not the tech,) but allowing me to select which sections I'm seeing, color-coded, and size/coverage adjusted, just makes sense to me.I wish it also translated too. I'd love to be able to get a better idea of foreign coverage from it.<p>Wow, this whole wall of text, and I guess my point is "the best anyone has done so far, is in not being a COMPLETE pain in my ass." Sorry.
I actually like the german site <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/</a> . News website design has gone a completely different path in germany and i think this path is more weblike, it's a stream and feed of news. The way news sites are designed everywhere else is too cluttered for me.<p>Other examples:
<a href="http://www.zeit.de/" rel="nofollow">http://www.zeit.de/</a>
<a href="http://sueddeutsche.de/" rel="nofollow">http://sueddeutsche.de/</a>
The Los Angeles Times is one of the best- <a href="http://latimes.com" rel="nofollow">http://latimes.com</a>
The Guardian is good too- <a href="http://guardian.co.uk" rel="nofollow">http://guardian.co.uk</a><p>Drop me a line if you're working on anything newspaper or journalism related and you'd like to chat about it- my username at google mail.