Compare and Contrast News Outlets

The three news sites I chose to look at are: CNN.com, USAToday.com, and Guardian.co.uk.

CNN.com
The stories that get the most prominent placement on the page seemed to be the latest news within the USA. The main story was about the family of a plane crash victim who were seeking answers as to why this happened. The story was new but it seemed more like a piece that would touch peoples' emotions as oppose to affect them directly. The other stories on the page where ones that seemed to be more life interested. They had stories such as a story about the boy on the milk carton from 30 years ago that was never found. It seemed like they had more fluff pieces then hard news on their front page.

I think that CNN. com adhered to the "Morrow Standard" of being fair and balanced because it had some hard news pieces but they were intermixed with softer pieces. I think that this conveys to the reader the options they have. I didn't feel like I was bombarded with information or opinions that I didn't want to see. I think that the main story was apparent but that their were other options easily available.

I think the primary audience for CNN.com would be middle class, middle age, Americans. It didn't really have very much international news offered right on the first page, so I think that it is focused more on people that care more for news that they can easily relate to. I also think that some of the stories focused more on a middle aged group, because they were more life pieces such as stories about book clubs, news on Oprah, or commentary on issues.

Guardian.co.uk
The story that seemed to get the most prominent placement I believe was the most important international news. The main story was a story about a charity group that is being accused of giving aid to Mumbai attacks. Other stories that seemed to be the most important were stories from all over the world, such as the story of Obama wanting to 'stifle' the abuse pictures and the amount of people who have died in a Sri Lanka hospital shelling.

I think that the Guardian.co.uk adheres to the Murrow standard for the most part. I think that it definitely gives fair space to the different stories. It seemed to really show the international news from each country and give fair space to different array of stories. It also seemed to really focus on hard news. There were not many soft pieces apparent on the first page.

I think that the target audience for this website is people from all over the world. It seems that this website is most focused on bringing news from all over to everyone. Its focused seemed to be people who would be most interested in hard news that was happening in places that they didn't have first hand access to it.

USAToday.com
The story that seemed to get the most prominent placement was a story about how Shuttle Atlantis grabbed Hubble. The other stories that got the best placement seemed to be hard news from around the country. Stories such as the Obama/abuse pictures and how retail sales are falling. It seemed that it was focusing mainly on the most important news of the moment in the US.

I think that it is fair pertaining to the Murrow standards. It seems that it is giving priority to news within the USA but they seem to be marketing themselves as a news media with more of an America focus. I think that for the people that are using their website they are giving them what they want as readers.

I think the target audience would be normal Americans. I think that this is displayed when the focus is more on stories within the USA. It also seemed that the news stores that were prominent were ones that a middle class American would be interested. There wasn't very many stories about international news on the first page but it was apparent that the option would be there if that was an interest to the reader.

Which news outlet would I use?

I think I would use USAToday.com. The reason I would use this website would be because it shows hard news that is going on right now that as an American I feel like I can relate to what they are talking about or at least understand the stories. I also feel like if I wanted to read other stories about other countries this website would make it readily available.