Comparing Blogs to News Stories
Often times news blogs and news stories can seem quite similar. Especially when the topic of the blog is related to a specific story from that news organization. One type of blog that is popular and almost always related to news stories are political blogs.
I went to USA Today‘s website and browsed their blog section. USA Today has a page specifically for political blogs. The latest entry on the page at the time was a blog posted by journalist Jill Lawrence. It entails information about the 2007 Presidential race, in particular Hillary Clinton and the primaries being held in Texas and Ohio today.
There was also a story on USA Today about the Texas primaries and the importance it holds for both Clinton and Obama. The story on USA Today was not so narrowly focused on Hillary, though it definitely pertained to her.
As a journalist, it is important to distinguish the difference between a news story and a news blog. Some of the elements that set the blog apart from the USA Today article are more details and a tighter focus of the blog. The article was broader and covered both sides of the primary, Clinton and Obama. But the blogger chose to focus simply on Hillary. The title of the blog: Clinton: Imperative to Make Contrasts. It is easy for a journalist to know that a blog is not story that is published on a news website. A blogger does not have to have an editor approve what they write, but they must be careful to not show a lot of bias. A journalist who posts on a site like USA Today is expanding on the news, giving more details. This blog is much shorter than the news article and it is one of several dealing with the primary elections and the presidential candidates. One of the biggest differences to a journalist between blogs and news stories are readers’ comments. When someone comments on a news story, it is usually to correct something in the story, it is in a more critical sense. That is because that story reflects the news organization, like USA Today. But comments on blogs are done in a more helpful sense. They are providing more information to the blogger, it is not necessarily criticizing them. This is because what the blogger posts is not a reflection of a bigger organization, but only of themselves.
A reader, who is not a journalist, must also be able to determine the difference between a blog and a news story. It can be confusing because the blog might be about a published story on the website. But one key factor in the example of the Clinton blog is that the news article is much longer and covers a wide range of elements, unlike the blog. Also, blogs can be posted much faster than a traditional news story. A reader can see that the blogs are frequently updated as news unfolds and new posts are written. The blog is not directly associated with USA Today, but with Jill Lawrence. She has a profile page and a place for comments. Because this blog is expansion of the USA Today story, the reader should be able to recognize the fact that it is not in fact an article published by USA Today, but by the blogger.
Andrafh said,
March 19, 2008 at 12:06 am
thanks much, man