Assignment 10: Journalism and the Internet

When talking about journalism, one would not usually think of the internet right away. Journalism is, in fact, a discipline of gathering, writing and reporting news in various media that Wikipedia lists as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. The internet, however, is mentioned in the article as a challenge to “the traditional journalistic professional culture.” Although present day news can sometimes be unimportant information about pop culture and celebrities, for example, what kind of trouble Britney Spears is getting into this week; people need to realize that current events are important to keep up with as well. I believe that people tend to get lost in these kinds of alternate realities of celebrity gossip, forgetting about more important issues in the world around them that comes from more reliable sources. The most traditional sources of this kind come in the written form of newspapers, magazines, or even news websites on the World Wide Web.

One of these online sources includes CNN.com. This website includes local and national news as well as videos, photographs, and a search bar to search for news whether it is recent news or older news. One source that does lie within the traditional journalistic professional culture mentioned before is the newspaper, USA Today. One article that both of these sources share that has received quite a bit of media attention is about the fire which occurred at a beach house in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, killing seven college students. Many articles have been written about this event which occurred on Sunday, October 28^th, but the most recent newspaper article I discovered was Wednesday, October 31^st and the most recent CNN report online was on Tuesday, October 30^th. These articles both share the same topic, but because of the different media displays, they also have many differences in how the information is presented to the reader.

In the newspaper, USA Today, the article lies in the Health and Behavior subsection of the paper. The headline reads: N.C. beach house inferno highlights well-known risks and the sub-title reads; Tragedy that claimed lives of 7 students looks similar to other high-profile fires. Within this article, there is one picture of the house in which the fire took place. The content of this article focuses mainly on college housing and fire statistics, especially within the Greek community on campus. The article stresses the importance of fire safety and includes interviews of mainly authority figures from colleges and fire experts, leaving little room for doubt because it is composed of strictly facts, rather than opinions. The website CNN.com, however, presents not only different information, but in a much different way.

In the article provided on the CNN news website about the North Carolina fire, the headline reads: Three Carolina fire victims were high school buddies. This article, although only published one day before the article in the USA Today, provides almost none of the same information given in the newspaper. Instead, the content of this article revolves around the people involved in the fire and the incident itself. The article goes on to name the victims, as well as the survivors of the fire and touches on the actual occurrence of the fire and what the scene was like. This article also held a lot more emotion than that of the USA Today. Quotes were taken from interviews of some of the witnesses, as well as family members and friends of the victims of the October 28^th fire in North Carolina, bringing the reader to a more personal level with the event. Not only were there differences in content in these two articles but because of technology, other differences are allowed through the internet rather than print sources.

Because of technological advances in journalism, the internet has brought on a much more interactive way to present the news. In this particular article on CNN.com, people are able to comment on the article and receive feedback from people on their comments. The internet also allows multiple pictures as well as videos to be shown that relate to the article. Multiple photos of the “devastation” of the fire as well as the victims themselves can be found within this article by simply clicking on a link. Videos are also available for viewing on the site within the article such as video recordings of some interviews that took place. You also have options to e-mail, save, or print the article. These features together makes the online article not necessarily more informative seeing as though both articles contained different information, but definitely more convenient in the sense that the photographs and videos allow the reader to identify and to react more to the article and the online article is also a good way to be involved by being interactive and commenting on articles that you think are important or that you have a strong opinion on.

Citations:

(2007, October 30). Three Carolina fire victims were high school buddies. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/30/beach.fire/index.html?iref=newssearch

(2007, November 5). Journalism. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism

Davis, Robert (2007, October 31). N.C. beach house inferno highlights well-known risks. USA Today , p. 8D.