Precious art works coming to Sydney

Sydney-bound: China's famous terracotta warriors. (Reuters : Philippe Wojazer )

Terracotta warriors are national treasures for Chinese people, and they are also precious heritages of human civilization. They will come to Sydney this December, NSW Premier Kristina Keneally announced this week. ABC and SBS have the story on their websites.

ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/14/3038261.htm?section=entertainment

SBS: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1382312/Terracotta-Warriors-coming-to-Sydney

As a piece of online news, SBS does technically better than ABC. It adopts new format of link – using key words instead of string of digits in producing the last layer of the link. This adoption may bring it advantages in competing with its counterparts in search engines such as Google and Bing. Key-word-made links are more likely and quicker to be found by the engines, and usually listed high among the results. According to the statistics, readers are used to clicking the first five results on the page.

In stories about art and design, pictures are essential supplements for textual description; visual attraction could make up the tedium which abstract words has made. In this case, ABC’s picture-choice is much better than the SBS’s. ABC unfolds the story with a picture of Terracotta on the right top of the text. For the Australian readers, it is a big lure for them to get the story behind the splendid exotic picture. SBS choose to take a picture of two directors of the arts series in front of a poster of Terracotta. It is far less attractive than the ABC one, and provides no extra information. For the readers, it doesn’t mean anything.

Another better-done factor in ABC’s story is its clear structure. It begins with a brief intro of the arts series, which may start from this December, staring the first Terracotta show, accompanied with some background knowledge. Than spare some space for the following shows. This story keeps a nice balance between main ideas and extra information, yet the SBS one does not.

P.S. I really appreciate the comments part on ABC’s story, hope that SBS will adopt one soon.

Kerry O'Brien to host Four Corner

Kerry O'Brien will quit 7.30 and host Four Corner

Kerry O’Brien, a famous name for Australians, especially for the media practitioners here, decided to leave 7.30 Report and to host investigative program Four Corners from next year. Both of the programs have a large number of audiences across the country. O’Brien’s shift is a big news and change for them. Here lists two pieces of online news on Kerry’s shift:

From SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/kerry-obrien-to-host-four-corners-20101014-16krn.html

From The Australian (quote by Herald Sun): http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/obrien-returns-to-four-corners-as-host/story-e6frf7jx-1225938719425

Both of the news titles leave their subjects to O’Brien. According to my experience of reading news, title subjects usually refer to main ideas of news stories, thus, at first, I thought that they were stories mainly talking about Kerry O’Brien, yet carefully reading tells me that the latter one isn’t. It does talk about O’Brien coming to new program, but put the focus on the program Four Corners rather than O’Brien. It introduces the new format of the program followed by brief history of it. O’Brien is just a part of evidence to demonstrate the merit of the new format. It doesn’t mention his shift from 7.30 Report to Four Corners. In this case, I think it will be more appropriate to use the title “Four Corner welcome O’Brien” rather than “O’Brien returns to Four Corners as host”. Readers who want to get stories about O’Brien’s shift may be disappointed after clicking this news link.

Come to the SMH piece. Its title is in concert with main idea of the story. Not only the title is precisely presented, so do its structure and words. The first part of the story concerns about O’Brien’s shift. Except the narration, you may get quotations from both the Four Corner’s editor and O’Brien himself, which make the whole story more credible. The next part turns the focus to the new program, introducing the changes O’Brien may take to the show next year. By reading this piece, readers could get adequate information about the shift and the new program. It not just tells readers what happened to O’Brien, but also takes O’Brien’s audience to, according to himself, his new phase of life.

Happy 70th birthday, Dear John Lennon

From AFP

October 9^th, 1940, John Lennon was born in the English city of Liverpool. 70 years later, Lennon is still a big name around the world. Beatles fans celebrate his birthday in many ways today. Here are two pieces of news on this story.

ABC world news: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/beatles-fans-celebrate-john-lennons-70th-birthday/story?id=11836351

Reuters: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/09/3033920.htm?section=entertainment

These two pieces are presented in different style though they both posted as online news. The story from ABC is unfolded in a broadcast style, while the other one is more like plain online news. The style difference reflects mostly in their word choice and structure.

The former one uses much more oral language rather than literary language which online news usually prefer. And it has looser structure than Reuters does. Take a careful look at them, you may find that the piece presented by Reuters follows strict news logic – a brief introduction embracing core information of the news, some background knowledge about the main characters followed by some quotes from them and then some detail reports of what actually happened. ABC presents the story with back-story and actual news story intersected. The merit of ABC’s style is that it makes the news more story-like and attractive. I cannot give a black-white judgment in this case, because, I think, both of them are informative and well-presented, everyone may has his/her own favored style, so the one fits better is better.

Though the contents of these two stories are equally appreciated, Reuters has a nicer layout than ABC. Because of too much additional materials and adds, ABC has to squeeze its news into some small blocks, in this case, the whole news is spilt into 4 blocks in two pages. This kind of layout may cause some loss in readers. Usually, readers don’t bother to turn to the next page to read some unnecessary information of entertainment news. Thus news, especially entertainment news, in proper length within one page is important.

Demi Moore settle out of court with New Idea

Hollywood actress Demi Moore sued New Idea for alleged copyright infringement Source: AFP

The “Ghost” Hollywood star Demi Moore got a settle-out-of-court on her case with the gossip magazine New Idea this week.

ABC, AFP and The Australian got the news. (The links are listed below)

ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/27/3022718.html

AFP:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jqrrkI6IPHGsybJbPFNQGQP4xdXQ

The Australian: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/moore-new-idea-settle-out-of-court/story-e6frg996-1225930060967

Reports from ABC and AFP have the same angle. As case reports, they present the factual information prior to other unconfirmed elements, such as quotes and alleged information concerning the case. Such kind of structure provide every reader, whether he/she is familiar with the case or not, with clear and integrated understanding of the case.

Except the structure, the second thing that makes the report successful is the word choice, especially in the case of lawsuit. ABC and AFP report the case in general words, easy to understand. Putting the reports in entertainment section, reporter may have had a clear identification of their audience – average readers. Thus the whole style of reporting is targeting common readers. As one of them, I think I get adequate information of the case.

Then turn to the one on The Australian. Directly clicking into the story, readers, who didn’t know what happened before, may be confused by the intro part and the following paragraph. They just present the current process of the case, no background at all. The factual information of the case was split into two parts – one following the first part of quoting, another on the button of the report. In addition to the factual presentation, the rest of the article is full of quotes and paraphrases, which lack credibility and authority. Readers can get little information they think it’s true from the story. Compared to the one from ABC and AFP, The Australian’s work seems bad.