Online News Reporting

The New York Times website has a lot going on. There are many different sections on the left side for the readers to choose from. The main page is a little cluttered and hard to navigate. The stories that are being covered on this Sunday evening are foreign policy issues, the Obama administration and politics at home. There are not many feature articles but straight news is the priority. There is a video feature on the front page which is interesting. I don't think a few years ago there would have been videos used at a print agency as much to report. Websites are evolving more and more and technology is becoming more and more available and access able even to smaller news industries.

I compared another news website, The Daily Beast. The name is catchier than The New York Times and when the page first opens it is like your eyes are attacked. The Daily Beast looks like the cover of a tabloid magazine you see at the grocery store trying to catch your eye with catchy headlines and photos. Instead of sections they have categories that sound more like something in a high school year book then actual news but they leave the reader wondering what it is. It also allows advertisers with the big bucks to have time in video content. There are more human interest stories like whose goatee is cooler. The stories differ from actual hard news to covering those who cover the news. Obama is a common thread and videos and shorter stories dominate to make blurbs more than stories.

These two contrasting styles are old school and new school. I can see that the New York Times is trying to keep up but they are falling behind as The Daily Beast is more controversial and up on the technology. The news stories on the Times are more hard hitting clear news stories that actually mean something to the public. The Daily Beast is capitalizing on the public's interest in quick news rather than actual reporting. I compare Beast with the water cooler talk that you bring up around lunch break. The Times has informative stories that go deeper and make the reader more informed. The readers of Internet news will pick their poison. The majority of readers are not those who are well informed citizens of the world. Many just go along with the trends. There are some people who are just too busy to read a full news story. They want it when they can get it and the Times is slowly coming around to that idea. I do feel that the readers of print news will still read print and stay away from other news agencies like the Beast as entertainment more so than actual news.