Web-writing

The intentions on weblogs or online news sites should always be to keep it simple for the reader. It should be concise and quickly sum up the facts for the reader in the first sentence. With this in mind i decided to do a bit of investigative browsing and look at some of the popular mainstream sites to see if they fulfill this goal.

I looked at two english newpaper sites to see exactly how they went about keeping the reader through story structure,lay-out,web-writing etc.

The home page on the Guardian newspaper (www.guardian.co.uk) is very interactive and the headlines instantly make sense with the main story being about the grenade attack in China having 6 relevant related links. The opening paragraph on this story also immediately outlines in a short sentence however in my opinion this article is too long at over 800 words.

The Daily Mirrors site(www.mirror.co.uk)  couldn’t be any different than the Guardians with a lot of images used to show the reader instantly what the story is about. I was surprised to find no mention of the grenade attack in China on the homepage so decided to read a random story about an FBI sting that recovered the little girl from her father who had abducted her. This was a short piece that instantly outlined the story in a concise inverted pyramid. Again this couldn’t be any different than the Guardian however I feel that both have got it wrong in some aspects particularly length. The Mirror’s story was too short and the Guardians was too long.

External Links

On most of the sites I have visited in relation to the subject of online journalism the lack of external links is a worrying trend. The only site so far that has exceeded my expectations in relation to this is www.drudgereport.com The fact that most of the news organization’s sites don’t externally link is a feature that must be reduced in the future to fully realise the potential of the internet in relation to journalistic practices.

 

Most of them just have internal navigational links that includes sections, blogs etc. They fear losing the reader however they could counteract this by opening the link in a new tab or window while keeping their site running. To retain a certain degree of journalistic credibility they must start to externally link a lot more in the future.

American Elections

Reading through some of the blogs that are related to the American election is like navigating a political minefield with different opinions coming at you from every angle. Be they Republican or Democrat. While most of them are pugwash there are a few expections with the most notable in my opinion being www.huffingtonpost.com and www.drudgereport.com

Handily enough on the homepage of the Huffington Post they have  a John Mc Cain and Barack Obama section with all posts with these tags included. On the right hand side on both of these pages is a section which links to the most popular Mc Cain or Obama stories. As a journalism student I really appreciate this as it allows one to read into and research many aspects of their campaigns. There are also a lot of videos on the site which help to give the readers a wider picture of the issues being discussed.

The home page on the Drudge Report is a lot harder to navigate with long reams of text which leaves the reader with a lot of navigating to do just to find a story they want to read however the thing about the Drudge Report is that it is a site that is essentially an external link site and I think they should be applauded for this as it is a rare quality and gives the users more options in terms of story content.

Olympic Games 2008

 

I have started doing a news-based magazine on the upcoming Olympic Games in China and in researching this subject I have looked upon many interesting news-sites and blogs and signed up to the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com) to learn more about a story regarding the arrest of their photographer Felix Wong who was involved in a scuffle with policemen who were forcibly removing journalists who where filming the chaotic scenes as thousands queued for tickets and it got out of control.

The amount of blogs and sites calling for the boycott of the games are too numerous to list here but a well-written one that gives facts and quotes from reputable news agencies is http//boycott2008games.blogspot.com/

It is obvious from reading through some of the posts just how many people are vehemently opposed to these games and I can see the protests continuing for the duration of the events.

slashdot.org and alternet.org

While I have looked at and analysed some of the more mainstream sites I feel I haven’t properly given the required and justified time to other websites like slashdot.org and alternet.org and thought that today I would browse through their layout and hopefully their use of external hypertextuality.

 

I expected both these site to be highly interactive however I was disappointed to learn that you must subscribe to become a member on slashdot.org to properly avail of their interactivity capabilities. Another weakness was found when I tried to find any external links that related to a story I was reading about the new American bill ‘the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008’ being proposed. There wasn’t any! While I would expect this of the mainstream site I was disappointed to find it here also.

 

The writing on alternet.org impressed me as it didn’t talk down to it’s readers but instead viewed them as being highly intelligent and well-read on the subject. The article ‘Massive Economic Disaster Seems Possible- Will Survivalists Get the Last Laugh’ was well-written and researched and some of the comments on the site helped to shed new light on the subject. Overall I was more impressed with alternet.org than slashdot.org as was able to read the reader’s comments without the hassle of having to sign up to the site.

Local Irish Sites

How do local Irish Newspapers deal with online journalism and the burgeoning demand for it? This was the question i asked myself as i looked through various sites including www.wicklowtoday.com and anglo-celt.com. I must say that i was immediately surprised at the depth and quality of wicklowtoday as I am more used to my own local papers such as the Cavan Echo and Northern Standard. The layout of WT’s homepage was what impressed me most with ease of access a major positive however once i clicked on the news section i was less than impressed as the last story posted on the site was from Friday December 14th 2007. When you compare this to other site it does not paint a pretty picture, i found the Anglo-Celt site to be better than i had thought with the opinion section reading rather like a weblog that detailed and discussed relevant local issues. Despite all these positives the lack of quality external links throughout the sites was a major weakness.

Popular sites- strengths and weaknesses

After looking at some local Irish newspapers attempts at online journalism I feel the best way to properly judge them is to compare them to the leading international competition by examining their strengths and weaknesses. I have looked at some of the most popular news-based websites including www.nytimes.com, www.the sun.co.uk and www.guardian.co.uk and scrutinized some of the following aspects:

IntInteractivity

<!Use of external links

<!Quality of blogs

UsUse of video

New York Times

When investigating interactivity on this website I looked at the main story on the homepage to see if the opportunity arose to make a reader comment and it does on the left hand side of the page. The ease by which you could do this greatly impressed me. On the home page they have also included an educational video of Radovan Karadzic which detailed the aspects of his crimes however all the links were internal which shows me an unwillingness to let the viewers leave their site. The blogs section included numerous and diverse sections. I have looked at some of these before and they tend to be well-written and researched.

The Sun

The Sun’s website differs greatly from the New York Times and the Guardian with numerous questionable aspects in relation to their online news output. To be honest I couldn’t properly critique this site as it contained no external links or blogs however there was a lot of videos and a discussion section.

The Guardian

The Guardian’s site was very easy to browse and contained easy links to navigate through various topics. It was also relatively easy to leave comments on their blogs however like the other websites dealt with it didn’t offer the browser any external hypertextuality with no links to related news sites and articles

Future for Internet Blogging

Blogging can be said now to be right up there with the printing press when it comes to sharing ideas according to Wharton legal professor Dan Hunter in an article on the website http://news.cnet.com/the-future-of-blogging

“At it’s most basic level it’s a technology that is lowering the cost of publishing” says his associate Kevin Werbach. Despite all these grandiose statements they never get down to the core issue and question of what is next on the horizon for the blog.

There is a piece on the website www.problogger.com that gets right to the point and answers the question “Whats next in blogging (or beyond blogging)?

On the article it is argued that blogs are not in the ‘past’ – but in a period of consolidation and extension and that these are the activities that a lot of bloggers are looking towards in the future

• adding authors – group blogs are the new black
• clustering blogs around verticals – bloggers extending their blogs by adding sibling blogs on related topics
• networking – 2006 was really the year of the blog network but it continues to happen in both loose and formal ways. Many of the blog networks didn’t really survive but there are quite a few that continue to bubble away and sustain themselves
• adding services and features - whether it be video, podcasts, forums, job boards, classifieds, chat features, voting tools… many bloggers are beginning to add interesting features to their blogs that attempt to add value to blogs. I think what we’re seeing is bloggers more willing to see the limitations of blogs and wanting to blur the edges of what is and isn’t a blog.

While this may be true at the moment it’s my opinion that it is hard to accurately predict the path that online blogging will take.

Toronto Online News

Because I am over in Toronto on a student-work programme I have decided to look at how they deal with online-news on this side of the Atlantic. The first website i visited was www.torontosun.com. I was instantly struck by how dazzling the homepage is and some of the features included that are rare in Ireland including that weeks lottery numbers etc.

I also had a quick look at the blog section which was basically a link to a site called www.canoe.ca and was amazed at the amount of blogs that were there that took a humerous rather than serious look at the days events. I would have liked to see more serious thoughtful blogs on this site.

niche blogs

Having a burgeoning interest in graphic novels and comics I decided to take a look at this niche market and how their blogs are laid out and if there are any major differences in them and the previous ones I have looked at. One of the most well-known sites that deals with this subject is www.newsarama.com

On the right hand side of their blogs page is a categories section which is very helpful if you have a specific issue you want to read about. The use of fantastic graphics on this site adds to the appeal for the average graphic novel fan. On top of this, the site is laced with humour and news of new releases and film adaptations.This helps to keep your attention and make you stay on the site.

There is also some very interesting videos on this site. Another positive on this website is the picture on it from various conventions which show new characters, adaptations etc. Overall this is a very well-executed blog that will appeal to your average graphic novel fan.