A View on the News

Yahoo, Huffington Post and Slte have teamed up to host two presidential debates (2008) online... and online only. It will give voters a chance to ask their own questisons - actually participate in the debate. This seems to be an extension of the technological-themed race so far. Candidates are using the internet to their advantage, posting blogs, videos on YouTube and banner ads, creating MySpace pages and having "extremely well designed websites."

The first article I looked at is from caribjournal.com and can be found here: http://caribjournal.com/2007/04/23/online-presidential-debates-now-more-tech-savvy-new-minty-flavor/

This article is very colorful with lots of quotes paired with great information on the event. It has a little bit of a delayed lead, but we find out in the second paragraph that the information was released on Monday, showing timeliness. The impact is pretty evident, or at least the impact that the cadidates are trying to have:

**"...These debates represent a further merging of new media technology and politics, and are a great opportunity to bring more people into the political process, and engage the new generation of young voters who spend so much of their time – and get so much of their information – online.�**

The article has some sort of prominence, since the three companies (Yahoo, Huffington and Slate) are fairly well-known, which makes news. The article mentions other names such as Charlie Rose, who will host the event and Howard Dean, who will give the opening remarks for the Democratic debate. This gives the article even more prominence. This event definitely has novelty and the article really shows its unusualness:

**The world’s first online debates in human history have been planned for both democratic and republican candidates.**

Simply, it is a first and constitutes as human interest. Regarding the supplemental values, it is definitely helpful. The article gives a lot of information on the debates including why they are doing them online, what it is going to be like, etc. so that readers can decide whether they would like to tune in.

The second article I read is from MSNBC.com and can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18271517/

This article contains many of the same news values as the first. It is timely because the presidential race is just starting to take off, however the article does not include the date that the info was released. For all we know, it could've been a week ago. The impact isn't as reiterated as in the first article, however it does mention the following, the impact on the public:

**Voters will be invited to submit questions, and can blog in real time to share their opinions on the candidates' answers.**

This article has prominence and novelty for the same reasons as the first article and is helpful as well. This is something that impacts everyone; therefore, it could be considered a necessity in both articles because both stress the turn from everything being televised to everything online.

I think both of these articles are well done, however the first one was more fun to read, in my opinion. The lead put you into context - I think that is what grabbed me right away and that is why i prefer that one over the second. It's not boring. There are some quotes in it that are way too long, however... a lot of them could be paraphrased. The second reporter did a better job with that.