New Media Journalism Summary

One of the assignments for the course that is the origin of this blog was to follow four online news sites. The sites I chose are The NCPR news blog The In Box, the Huffington Post, The Onion, and the New York Times Online. Here is my analysis of these sites:

The In Box(formerly called All In), the news blog published on North Country Public Radio's website is an excellent companion to NCPR's regional coverage. NCPR is the only radio station with in-depth coverage of regional news, and The In Box gives a sort of behind-the-scenes journal written by the reporters and staff of NCPR.

The Huffington Post exemplifies new media journalism: brash, hip, user driven, and slanted. The slant in this case is to the left(or extreme left depending on your definition). The website's pages are colorful and sometimes chaotic, with links to blogs, videos, straight news articles, editorial articles, and ads. A notable and fun new media aspect is the ability to comment on the content (or comment on a comment) or if you don't have anything specific to add, you can click one of the reaction buttons to describe how an article made you feel. Of course you can also facebook like it or post it to your facebook or twitter.

I continue to be a huge fan of The Onion, which can be described as funny fake news. The jokes only work if you already follow the news and are familiar with the format of newspaper or TV news programs, so don't go to The Onion to learn what's going on, go there to laugh about it. The Website is set up well, similar to a 'real' news site with clickable headlines and ledes. Like the Huffington Post, NY Times and many others, all the pages have clickable tabs at the top which lead you to the different sections of coverage.

To get 'serious' news info The New York Times has long held the reputation as 'the paper of record' in the U.S. Much of the content in the print edition is availiable for free online, I suppose in an effort to stay relevant if not profitable. I find the print edition more organized and attractive than the website's homepage, but the coverage is still good. One advantage online news sites have is the search bar, which makes finding the articles you want much easier.