Prepare for your 2012

( Picture form ABC News Photo Illustration)

Source:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5301284&page=3

Topic:
Will the World End in 2012?

Author: Christine Brouwer


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/

Your everyday life and 2012 doomsday

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17essay.html

Topic:
Is Doomsday Coming? Perhaps, but Not in 2012

Author:
Dennis Overbye

When everyone is talking about 2012, worrying that 2012 will be the end of human, we do need some opinion from authorities and experts. Based on this background, Mr.Overbye summarized the relevant information from NASA and CERN, interviewed some scientists, and explain the possible disasters which have been presented in the movie 2012.

I really like the author use a little humor to relate this science news to everyday life. If the end of human isn’t in 2012, we still need to “keep up those mortgage payments”. What a “bad” news!

But this article seems a little lack of logic order or sense. The story keeps jumping from what the experts says to the background then to the Mayans, which make it a little confusing. The better structure may follow this order: news lead, background (including Mayans legend), NASA and CERN opinion, and expert opinion.

In terms of the design and structure of this website, the section “related Searches “gives the links to NASA and CERN. Moreover, a lot of keywords such as “climate change”, ”sun”, ”earth” are linked to the relevant New York Times websites. All these links are very helpful and convenient for readers.

This is Hyperlink, the magic of online news.

For example，the article mentioned that “announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube”, I clicked the “video posted on YouTube”, then I got this video(although it seems like not in YouTube but VIMEO).

The Truth about 2012 from NASA Lunar Science Institute on Vimeo.

Want to know more? Click here to read some interesting opinions and reactions about 2012:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5301284&page=3

Your everyday life and 2012 doomsday

Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/its-the-end-of-the-world-but-not-as-we-know-it-20091203-k8pg.html

Topic:
It's the end of the world but not as we know it.

Author:
Andrew Frost


This article is a movie review about the movie “2012 Doomsday”. At the beginning of the article, the author uses concise language to summarize the whole movie. Then he observes a popularity of doomsday movie and gives many examples, such as “knowing”. He also finds out that another kind of movie is unusual hot, that is vampire and zombie movie. Moreover, he provides an analysis about this popularity. The reason is people are worrying about the future of the world, but they try to believe that they can survive or maybe they can transfer to another kind of living creature, which will never die.

This movie review is the best one I have ever seen, comparing with other articles about the movie “2012 Doomsday”, because of its in-depth analysis. The author Andrew Frost is a professional art critic. He not only focuses on the popularity of the movie, but also points out the reason behind this popularity. As a movie critic, He points out the problem sharply, “The problem with our collective imagination is that the end of the world isn't something that we'll get to watch from a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned cinema. It's something that we'd be a part of.”

A movie is just a movie. The reason why media pay attention to movie is not just for entertainment. If we look at different kinks of movie and figure out in a particular period which kind of movie is most popular, we are not just talking about the movie, but the social trend. The type of social trend is developed by a particular cultural and historic reason. Movie is like a mirror, which shows what people are thinking and doing.