Ala. editor gives old newspaper box new digital life

BY CHUCK MOOZAKIS, Editor in Chief

A Birmingham (Ala.) News editor brought new life to the old-fashioned newspaper box.

Scott Walker, assistant managing editor at The News, modified an old news display box he ordered on eBay to become an interactive kiosk that displays front-page headlines, slideshows, music and other digital elements.

The turbocharged box, which cost about $600 to create, sits in Walker's house, where it continually offers front-page information from The News and other sources.

"I'm always looking at presentation and wanted to see if how it would be possible to display a slide show in a news rack," Walker said.

Walker said he received some of his inspiration from the Newseum's Web site (www.newseum.org), which features the front pages of more than 550 newspapers from 56 countries.

"I had already tinkered with some (software) scripts that would enable me to look at pages quickly, and from there it was some additional tweaking to generate a slide show," he said.

He then trolled eBay, where he found a used newspaper vending rack, which once belonged to The Journal-News in Rockland County, N.Y., for about $100, which included shipping.

Once the rack arrived, Walker cleaned it up, removed as many dents as possible and painted it a glossy black.

Old technology out of the way, Walker prepared to add the new.

That was accomplished by installing a 17-inch LCD monitor that sits on a steel brace, which originally held the plastic piece that pressed The Journal-News against the window.

To give the monitor further support, he extended the leg that attaches to the monitor stand over the bottom brace of the box.

Next, Walker added a Macintosh Mini, a subwoofer, satellite speakers and even some rope lighting to give the box some visual pizzazz.

Once all the hardware was in place, Walker taught the Mac to retrieve from the Newseum electronic images of some 150 papers to display through a combination of customized AppleScript software, iTunes and wireless home networking.

The result? A daily show of Walker's own, thanks to his retooled news box that provides a multimedia presentation of the day's news, complete with music and lights.

Walker concedes his musical box isn't a practical application, and given the newspaper industry's economic state, it's doubtful any publisher would spend $600 on a news box, regardless of its multimedia attributes.

Still, the box has attracted positive attention from the blogosphere and The News is evaluating whether to put one of Walker's stands on display in its lobby.

And Walker thinks he could add more features, such as touchscreen navigation or Flash animation.

"You really can do whatever you want," he said.