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Analysis #5: Multimedia

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Looking at Fox News, the site has a specific section entitled "Video." There are a number of featured videos and a Mobile Video subheading as well. Most of these videos will just run one after the other, set up almost like Hulu or another site of the sort. There is generally much less writing or none at all, except maybe a line resembling a lead to give a little background. Many news stories will have pictures with captions and those stories tend to be a little shorter and occasionally reference the picture.

CBS is slightly more discreet about the mobile and radio options available, but they are there if you look hard enough. The "bigger" stories were more likely to have pictures or video involved. The video section of the site was down when I went on but videos would show up elsewhere.

Mobile options are great in this day and age because it seems like everyone has a smart phone or tablet device at hand. Audio seems to be dying, especially with how everything is going HD lately. Audio can still be great, especially for elections and such where you want to hear the intonation in someone's voice.

Video is obviously a good way to round things out as well because it tends to give a lot of good background and it's easier to feel the tone of a particular story. Photos do a nice job of advancing stories, in my opinion. It's nice to put a face to the name in a story or to get a better idea of the setting of a news story.

Analysis #3: Structure

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The structure of this Kare 11 story was ultimately very effective.

The lead gives just enough information: "shot to death" and "hotel in Minneapolis" are specific yet general at the same time because the number of shots and name of hotel are not included yet.

The story moves into giving the age, name, and location of the victim and included that he was "shot several times." The next bit gives more about the when and where which is very effective. Names should be first and when is less crucial usually. The place could have been brought in with his name as well, but this way was fine.

The next part brings up the arrest. If this had been put any later, it could have been a hindrance to the story because it took so long to get to the "meat" of the story if you will. Luckily the other fact blocks were short and it was just fine.

The rest of the story contains quotes and slightly less pertinent information and then follows into asking if anyone has details about the incident. This story was very effective and followed a nice, readable structure.

Analysis #2: Attribution

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This Kare 11 story about the Susan G. Komen foundation reversing its decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding utilizes a number of sources.

The first source provided was a very logical choice - the founder of the Komen foundation herself, Nancy Brinker. She is the head of the whole foundation and thus responsible for defending any major decisions, especially those that caused such an uproar.

There is a source in every paragraph of the story that follows. The next source is a PR consult for the foundation, which is another logical choice. Public Relations definitely plays a hand in these matters because PR is about preserving the reputation of companies and individuals.

The following sources represent Planned Parenthood and the Komen foundation. The way these sources are introduced is very effective and each person certainly plays a role in the behind the scenes aspect of the story.

What could be a concern is how long some of the titles for these sources are. If the title is much longer than the person's name or quote (an example in this story is with Pam Glenn), his or her words can become buried.

Overall, this story is a very fine example of how to use attribution to the fullest in a news setting.

Analysis #1: Leads

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In this CNN international news story about the Italian cruise ship, the lead was very straightforward.

"A woman's body was found Saturday in the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship, Italian officials said, taking the number of people confirmed dead to 17."

The lead of a news story is very much the first impression of the article. Aside from the title, it's the reader's first idea of the seriousness of the story and who and what are involved. This particular lead would certainly be considered a "hard news" lead due to the lack of scenic detail, puns, and statistics.

The story utilizes the gender of the deceased, the day of the week, the name of the particular cruise ship, and where the officials are from. This lead isn't particularly detailed overall, but it gives just enough to interest the reader. The day of the week being mentioned may seem unnecessary because the story was written and posted on Saturday as well. It may be more fitting to leave that part out, but in this story it may have been done because the story was posted in the evening.

The gender of the deceased was mentioned, but not the age or where she was from. This information is not mentioned in the story itself, though, so it can be deduced that this information is not readily available yet. The story did mention that she was in a uniform and that it was suspected that she worked on the ship. This fact was uncertain and was probably left out of the lead for that reason.

The name of the cruise ship was mentioned and this was probably to avoid confusion: the Italian cruise ship story has been in the news for awhile. Still, people could assume that another cruise ship had gone down if both "Italian officials" and "Costa Concordia" were not mentioned.

Essentially, the purpose of this particular lead was to give the very basics, perhaps because the article is fairly long and goes into a lot of detail updating readers about new information involving the ship wreck.

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