Developer Phillip Mendonça-Vieira's time lapse video of the New York Times homepage went media-world viral when he posted it in July. On Wednesday, Mendonça-Vieira posted an equally intriguing look at the Times' coverage--except that, this time, he compared the paper of record to the BBC. (h/t Romenesko)
Mendonça-Vieira set up time lapses for both the Times and the BBC during several major events, including the Chilean miner rescue, the Egyptian uprising and the Japanese tsunami. Then, he posted videos showing the two homepages side by side, to see how their respective coverage differed.
Mendonça-Vieira's major takeaway?
The thing that stands out the most in comparison to the nytimes is how the BBC's editors behave more placidly in their content curation. Where the nytimes crams its homepage with as much information as possible, the BBC picks the most important story of the day and runs with it.
Indeed, when looking at Mendonça-Vieira's video of the coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it is striking how much more busy and rapidly changing the Times' page seems. Headlines, pictures and layouts change with much more frequency, whereas the BBC lets things sit for longer periods of time. It is also fascinating to watch the story unfold with such speed, and to notice the places where the two media giants diverge in their coverage, as well as the places where they come together.
For his part, Mendonça-Vieira said that he preferred the BBC's coverage:
Frankly, the nytimes features a lot of noisy, America-centric news pieces. Just by watching the timelapses I felt vastly more informed on "what is happening out there" based on what the BBC decided to feature.
Watch video above. See the other time lapses here.
