By Roy Peter Clark
Vice President/Senior Scholar

When Roy Peter Clark was a schoolboy studying ancient history, he became fascinated, in a gladiator movie sort of way, with the Seven Wonders of the World.  He sat on his bed in a Long Island village, looked at picture books, and dreamed of flying back in time to visit the Egyptian Pyramids at Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympus, the Colossus of Rhodes (his favorite), the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Lighthouse at Alexandria.

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* Nominate a journalistic wonder.

Thanks to a recent international competition, we now have a list of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World:  the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Colosseum in Rome, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China, the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, and the Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico.  (Clark wonders why they left out the monuments in centerfield at Yankee Stadium.)

Which gave us this idea:
 
Are there Seven Wonders of the Journalism World?  No, not:

1.    Lunch
2.    Coffee
3.    Diet Coke
4.    Per diem
5.    Payday
6.    Day off
7.    Buyouts

We want to have fun with this, but selecting the Seven Wonders of the Journalism World also has a serious purpose:  to remind all of us of the historical forces that help us do our best work today;  and to articulate a set of enduring values that will help protect and advance journalism in unsettled times.

We have created a process which, with your help, will produce a product, one that would teach journalism history interactively, reminding journalists of their glorious past -- with an eye to the future.

The process will have three parts:

1.    We will ask you to help us nominate "Wonders" in six categories:

• Documents (such as the First Amendment)

• People (such as Walter Cronkite)

• Institutions (such as the BBC)

• Events (such as the publication of the Pentagon Papers)

• Technology (such as the invention of the telegraph)

• Works (such as the front page of the New York Times on Sept. 11)

We have decided there should be no limits placed on these categories, that they can come from America or other countries, from Western or Eastern cultures.  They can be big and famous or they can be hiding in small places

2.    Let's imagine we get, say, 50 nominations for each category.  A Poynter group, with some outside help, would choose 10 finalists in each category.  We would then seed them, like a sports tournament.

3.    Then we would pair them and ask you, our readers, to vote.  The winner would advance to the next round of competition.

As we go along, we will add content.  Links. Bios. Timelines. Images. Sound. Video.  All of this adds to the development of an important and interesting educational resource.  We at Poynter hope you will offer nominations and cast your votes, and help build a resource that will teach and inspire us all.