LOOKING WITH THE THIRD EYE

From the layman's point of view watching new on television or reading a copy of the rocky mountain news is no different from reading a news blog on msnbc or cnn. It is no doubt easy to fall in this category of people if you do not consider the vital factors almost required to make a good read out of a blog. In this post I would take a look at who what when where and why as cues one needs to place at the back of their minds to fully grasp the stories told on this website or other similar ones.

To explain the five Ws above I would take for example searching on a State of the Union Address speech by the President of the United States.When I enter the cnn website the first thing I would be looking for is at least an image of the President delivering an address on a platform or a title with the phrase "state of the union" in it. This will explain the what a reader will need to have at the back of their mind about the site.

The Who will be the president of the United States about whom the reader expects to see the state of the union address. And also the who will be the person presenting to the reader the news for example the journalist. Each new website has its own style of presenting but for cnn it is not unusual if you expect to see a video of the state of the union address or the full manuscript.

The when of the website a reader will need to be aware of is the timing of the broadcasts. Old stories are constantly giving way for new ones and if you expect to see what happened a week ago on the first page of the blog you may be totally disappointed. When the news is happening or at least a day old you can expect to see it but when it is more that a couple days old the only hope to get access to the story you may be looking for will be to look in the archives.

The why defines the category of the website or ganre of writing this websites falls under. In this case it is a website of news broadcasting so the style of writing or presentation is totally different from say a movie,comedy or shoes and apparell website. This will explain why a reader should understand that this particular website is not going to provide to you anything outside of what it ganre such as comedy or car auction. This is not entirely true because some news websites or blogs provide commercials for many products including cars.

The where is the most fundamental context of the website in serving the purpose for which it was built. In this instance provide news to readers or people who prefer to listen or watch.In fact this is tied up to the previous point in that it offers direction to location of the website, its affiliates or sub ganres if you will.

There are many items that may not fit for a newpaper article well but are more ideal for a blog.

It not just the technology of moving images that may push for such choice of a web page over a tradional paper but the need to provide intimate details of an event that may not be possible with a stationary image on a piece of paper. This provides answer to the question that the main thing blogs are conerned with transcends limitations imposed by broadcast on a radio station or television.

This is not intended to prove the fact that blogs are superior to tradional newpapers but to explain that the cultural context of a web page are much more easily conceivable than a traditional paper.

NEWS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

CNN.COM is most favorite website I visist on a daily basis for the local and international news I need. I am very keen on knowing what happens around me,this explains why a day never passes bye without taking at least a peak at the website of the new giant in the world.

As soon as you enter into the website of cnn you are right away introduced to a wide variety of interests you can explore be it verifying a news item you have heard or rendering yourself to be informed on what you need to know for the day,week, or even a month and year if you do not mind going into the archives.

It certainly gives a clear introduction to all the items you want to look at.For example severy weather in denver or more soldiers die in Iraq will give you the gist to what you are about to read and certainly it depends on whether you went to the local or international weather section or local and world news sections.

This adheres to web based media convenitions in more ways than one in that it gives you the salient news at first glance by the catchy titles. These titles summarise the news events while providing links for details if desired by the reader.

Images provide a vivid support for the titles as it helps to paint the picture of the image being portrayed in the writing,using images to support writing takes a different toll on your understanding because it makes the story more concrete for communitaction is more effective.

Perhaps the most vivid convention of all websites of this ganre such as bbc is that it provides continuity of flow from one item to the other in a very chronological form. It is the United States then the most concentrated news area in the world namely the middle east,then all the rest of the world such as Asia,Africa,Europe and South America.

The difference between traditional news writing such as newspaper or media such as radio and television is that they follow a coherent chart of putting across the new items. For example in reading the denver post you have to keep going through a write up to get to the end whereas reading on the internet or blog you get to see the end of the write up before even starting to read it. It gives you what you expect and it is right there at your finger tips.

You get the chance to read with the end in site because everything is laid before you from the beginning and development of local news to the ongoing flow of events or breaking news.

It is interesting to note that the cnn website provides links to videos of news cast that the visitor to the site can click to watch if he or she does not care to read. In this sense it is no different from regular television broadcast except that the viewer can pause, fastfoward repeat or stop on the website.

The computer editing abilities gives a writer the chance to back into the articles already posted to make changes if necesary which is not the case for print media. Once the paper is printed the best excuse that can be assigned to something as simple as spelling mistake is printing error whereas a blog can be corrected over and over again as needed.