Reading Response I

One of the major differences I’ve noticed between a newspaper and blog is that, while the newspaper seems to cater to a much more general audience with very little personal connection, blogs allow the journalist the freedom to connect with his or her on a more personal level. On the BBC World News website, a news article discussing Craigslist’s new removal of its “adult services” section begins with “The online marketplace Craigslist has closed the controversial ‘adult services’ listing in the US.” The article continues in this same fashion, simply stating the facts behind it, quoting several critics of the “adults services” section, and remaining an objective third party. However, Maggie Shiels, a BBC news journalist, begins her blog post with “The online marketplace Craigslist surprised everyone when it pulled the plug on its ‘adult services’ listings a few days ago.” While the BBC news lede simply gives the reader the facts, Shiel’s article assumes a much more personal and familiarized relationship with her reader through her stating that “Craigslist surprised everyone” with their decision. She later goes on to use some second-person language, beginning a sentence with “depending on what side of the fence you stand on...” as if she were having a conversation with her reader. She even ends her blog post by plainly asking the reader whether or not they think “Craigslist was right to censor the adult-services section”, a level of familiarity which is entirely missing from the news article which covered the same topic. Blogs therefore appear like a journalist’s attempt to have a discussion with his or her reader and generate  ideas, opposed to just regurgitating facts. Perhaps blogging appears more personal because bloggers are interested in finding readers who find their facts and ideas credible and are willing to follow their own person blog thread, opposed to new articles who’s credibility is based more so on the paper itself -- not the actual writer of the article.

The most obvious distinction I’ve noticed between different newspapers is in their coverage of regional news. While The New York Times and The Guardian are both newspapers with wide international coverage, both papers seem to cover more stories on news based on their respective countries; the home page of The New York Times has an entire column on coverage over  the 2010 Midterm Elections, but the home page of The Guardian has no headline covering the elections perhaps because it is a UK based paper. However, The Guardian does however cover New York Fashion Week (“Victoria Beckham at New York Fashion Week”) since it is considered international news. The New York Times’s main headline, however, reads “Tailgating Now Involves a Walk: Parking at New Meadowlands Stadium is based on seat location, separating longtime fans,” an entirely regional issue that assumes its reader is familiar with the name of the New York Giants and their home stadium. In addition, both websites have tabs where one can view “N.Y./Region” and “UK” news respectively. Regional coverage becomes even more obvious in the less internationally known papers with an LA Times’s headline reading “Loans tide over L.A. County health clinics” and “RFK complex is 6 schools and a statement” - an articles covering the opening of a long debated learning center built the old Ambassador Hotel in LA. Unlike regional news sites, BBC World News seems to have little to no preference for coverage of a particular country. Instead, BBC  World News’s main headlines have nothing to do with the UK at all “Deadly Kashmir Violence escalates” and “New York imam ‘exploring options’”.