Do you believe 2012 will be the end of human?Have you noticed many kinds of horror natural disasters?
I will analyze online and mobile news about 2012 and offer some articles and videos about disasters all over the world~
like to discuss it with you!
This story briefly reported that a tornado hit the north coast of New South Wales at Lennox Head, and the rest part is based on various quotes and images. Statistics and details were provided by policeman and emergency unit. Some witnesses talked about their experiences in the horror weather.
Seven pictures, one video clip and a map were also provided, which described the big tornado. In disaster news, the best way to describe is to let the images speak. These images had more visual impact on readers when it showed a house was smashed to pieces, just “like a bomb”.
(Picture form ABC news)
Metal, wood, water, fire and earth are the five basic elements in ancient Chinese philosophy. They compose everything, and destroy everything. They cause most natural disasters, except tornado.
In terms of online news, what is the most important element to attract readers? The answers are two: more images and readers themselves.
What makes readers so important? The interactivity of online news.
I really appreciate the “contribute” function of ABC News, which encourages readers to upload their own media, including images, video and audio. There is a hyperlink following this story: “Did you see what happened? Send us your photographs/video”.
The Internet era is upon us, the online news times is coming and the traditional top-down relationship between writers and viewers begins to fracture. Not just journalists, but everyone can be a contributor to online news, namely, readers have been a part of online news.
This story is a good example, some quotes and images from readers make this story.
Interested in tornado? Click here to watch a video from Channel Ten news, made by big media institution. You may see some interesting differences between these two clips.
Topic: Are there any reasonable explanations for spectacular sinkholes in China?
Author: Peter Foster
This story introduced a strange phenomenon that some sinkholes suddenly appeared across China. With some nice pictures (no reference), Mr. Foster described this big disaster and the media reaction in China. He also analyzed the discussion related to 2012, which presented different opinions among the public.
These strange sinkholes are quite newsworthy and people want to know what happened in China and the reason why this happened. It is exactly an interesting story published to discuss these sinkholes.
The problem is the picture below.
Eye-catching picture, isn’t it? Such a big hole among mountains.
Mr.Foster described this picture as “On April 27, several sinkholes appeared one after another in Yinbin City.”
That is a big mistake.
It is not “sinkhole” at all and it has been there for thousands of years, not just appeared “On April 27”.The big hole in this picture is another impressive geological phenomenon called “Karst Tiankeng”.
You may notice that Peter Foster” was formerly the Daily Telegraph's South Asia Correspondent based New Delhi from 2004-2008”. Having four years journalism experience, people still make mistakes when writing in blog.
Currently, blogging may be considered as an alternative to traditional journalism for its increasing popularity. More and more citizens participate actively in the process of collecting, reporting, and analyzing news. But the credibility and accuracy of blogging still needs to be examined. Although blogging may have less political bias, one limitation of blogging news is the personal bias, including excessive prejudices and misunderstandings. Differing from traditional media, which contain investigative journalism, most bloggers simply present partial fact based on personal experiences, due to lack of time and resources.
I am a blogger, too. Don’t trust me before you Google the information in my blog. If you find any mistakes in my blog before 2012, just let me know---I don’t want the new creatures on the earth laughing at me.
Want to know more about these big holes? Click this(from YouTube):
At first, I feel regret that the editor of ABC news had a bad taste when choosing this irrelevant picture to present with this article. It is a simple collection of disaster photos and has nothing to do with the story.
A 51-year old man Patrick Geryl highly believes the doomsday theory and presumes that the whole world would end in 2012. So he thinks he doesn’t need jobs or money anymore. This is the first story in this news article. The second story is about Dennis McClung, a fantastic business man, who runs an online survival supply store called “2012suppies”. The third story is about one customer of Mr.McClung, and so on.
It seems like this news article only focus on individual stories. If so, what are the news values? Why these people matters? Although it is unusual, there is not significance related to public interest. In fact, the news story aims to report a specific group, the people who highly believe the catastrophe will come soon and change their choices for this concern. Neither Geryl nor Mcclung is the only one. By writing about several typical people, this news article provides a big picture of people’s funk and worry about 2012.
This is one of the news writing skill, from specific to general. Starting the news with a story of a person is easier to attract readers’ attention, because this kind of stories is usually vivid and easy to follow. It contains “human interest”. The public not only care what happened in the world, but also what are the other people thinking and doing. If this story writes generally about people’s reaction to the doomsday theory, it may probably be boring and dry. This writing skill is widely used by feature story and reports about social trend.
If you also firmly believe that 2012 doomsday will come, you may want to pick up a survival package from Mr.McClung ‘online survival supply store. Here is the link: http://www.2012supplies.com/
