Journalism Analysis - Essay Example

Journalism Analysis al Affiliation: Journalism Analysis China Daily is a media that was established in June 1981 with the main aim being to serve an English-language speaking population in China with a newspaper. Its editorial office is located in Beijing and the newspaper has other subsidiaries in different cities in China. Since its inception, this paper has grown to become the widest print circulation of English-language newspaper in the whole of China. The paper is published twice in a week, i.e. Monday and Saturday. The newspaper mainly serves foreigners working and residing in china. Furthermore, it targets those who are willing to learn English language. It mainly provides entertainment to the readers. Moreover, it translates major articles in the Chinese dailies in its editorial section. Therefore, it is the most popular paper for the tourists and diplomats. Other purposes include offering the readers with daily exchange rates, local entertainment schedules and national together with international news. Storify is a social network service that was launched in 2010 with the aim of creating stories using the social media as a source. The media depends heavily on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The media was founded by Burt Herman and Xavier Damman. The media gives the users an opportunity to import various stories or content from the social media. The media drags its information from various social media sources and posts it in their own timeline. Users are then given an opportunity to add their comment and embed their own Storify stories. China daily mainly targets English speaking population in China. However, it has opened other subsidiaries in Nairobi, Kenya and London. This is to spread information to Chinese-speaking population located in Africa and other parts of the Europe. This has expanded its geographical reach. In addition, its in-depth analysis of news has attracted the attention of other people who are interested on the economic, social, and political issues related to China and the rest of the world. This can be ascertained by the information on their webpage which targets China, Africa, world, business, lifestyle and entertainment. On the other hand, Storify targets the working population which is busy and has less time to read the newspapers. This is through providing them with brief news concerning the trending news in the major media houses across the country and the world at large. This has been facilitated by the ease to navigate through the media’s web page. There are only few tabs on this page in order to ensure that those who visit it are able to get information at ease. In addition, the font is large in order to enable those using smaller devices such as phones, tablets, and iPads to read without having to struggle. Both stories have been covered similarly through citing the original source of the information. In many cases, some media houses tries to attract the attention of the readers by trying to own the story (Briggs 2012). However, in these stories, both media have cited the original source of the information. This is because of the sensitivity of the information being shared especially to the family and friends of the people who were involved in the accidents. For instance, the Storify cites the social media which has links to specific sources. On the other hand, China Daily cites the speakers in the countries that were affected by the tragedy. This is to give an opportunity to the reader to follow the news further. This was significant in ensuring that the information being shared was authentic and verifiable. China Daily writing is more authentic with citation of all photos and quotes. The journalist has been able to follow the required writing standards by ensuring that all information that has been obtained from extra sources is well cited. However, this is not the case with Storify. The journalist who wrote this information cited social media as the source of information. However, information posted on the social media is not verifiable (Marwick, boyd, 2010). Therefore, the journalist should have cited credible sources such as newspapers or government agencies. China Daily is more specific and has gone an extra mile in researching and getting more information from credible sources. For instance, it has their news correspondents in different parts of the world such as France, Spain, and Germany. These are journalists who are tasked with feeding the media house with first hand information. Therefore, the information provided is more accurate while compared to the other source. Storify relies heavily on other media houses for information. Therefore, the reporting is more cautious and they have done very little to try and own the story. However, they have managed the information more effectively by avoiding going to details some of which might have an impact on the readers or families of the victims. On the other hand, China Daily manages its information by ensuring that it withholds information that will require further analysis and research. This is to ensure that it does not compromise with the ongoing investigation. In addition, it ensures that it gives accurate information which has already been verified by the authority. This is through avoiding quoting media houses which have received leaked information on the last minutes before the crush (Tapas, 2006). Storify journalist has not given details to guide those who are hearing the story for the first time. Information sharing should be comprehensive in order to avoid any form of misinterpretation (Shirky, 2009). In this case, the journalist gives just brief information which can easily be manipulated, an aspect that may make the readers to get the wrong meaning. However, China Daily has expounded the information and explained the situation and the tragedy from Barcelona all the way to the French Alps. This gives the readers with an overview of how the tragedy occurred and the conditions that are facing the rescue teams in the Alps as they try to recover the bodies of the victims and other important devices such as voice recorder which will play a significant role in enhancing the level of investigations. China Daily engages the users more effectively. This is through ensuring that the users have the opportunity to have the information without having to follow other links (Simons, 2007). In addition, the users have the chance to give their comments concerning the story and how it has been covered. This is unlike the other media which forces the gather the information to other media houses, an aspect that takes off the burden of accountability. Furthermore, the page does not give the users to comment or raise any issue concerning the reporting. Therefore, the level of engagement by this media is low. The technical delivery of information by China Daily is more effective than that of Storify. In addition, the navigation from one page to the other so as to continue with the story is very easy and clear for the readers. However, Storify leaves its readers hanging. The media house does not give clear information which can be followed. This is because anyone can post the information on the social media. It has stated that more information can be found on the social media but it has not provided the readers with the link to the social media page. Therefore, readers cannot know the specific social media page that they can follow so that they can read more information concerning this developing story (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013). However, this is not the case with China Daily. The media provides the names of the media houses where they have obtained their information. As a result, the readers can easily search and get more information on these media houses. The mode of online delivery of information by Storify is not effective. The journalist who wrote the information has not identified himself. In addition, there are no contacts that can be used to reach this person. Furthermore, there is no information sharing technologies which would enable the readers to share the information on social media or other systems. This makes the page unfriendly to the users who would like to share the information to their friends through the social media (Hermida, 2011). However, China Daily has enabled these technologies. It has provided the users with the email enabled technology. This is to enable them to save the story on their emails in case they want to read it later. Furthermore, the readers can easily share the story on social media network such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc. This makes the page to be user friendly and easy to navigate by the users. The media house has also provided an option for the readers to print the information. Therefore, those who would like to print the information for future references can do so very easily without having to visit the media house. In conclusion, China Daily webpage has been able to offer its readers with an array of option such as saving information on the email, printing, or even sharing the information of the social media. In addition, the journalist has cited the source of information and gone an extra mile in researching for credible information. This is unlike Storify which has directed the readers to social media, a platform with information that cannot be verified. Therefore, the presentation, user engagement, and information management by China Daily is up to the standards. References Briggs, Mark (2012) Blogging for better journalism, and Microblogging and social media. In Journalism Next: a practical guide to digital reporting and publishing, Second edition. Washington DC: CQ Press. pp. 37-62 and 89-113. Hermida, Alfred. (2011) Mechanisms of Participation. In Singer et al (eds) Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell pp.13-33 on e-reserve. Hinton, Sam and Hjorth, Larissa (2013) What is Web 2.0?. In Understanding Social Media. London & Thousand Oaks: Sage. pp 7-31 on e-reserve. Marwick, Alice E., boyd, danah (2010) I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society. Shirky, Clay (2009) Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, Clay Shirkys blog, March 3rd 2009. Accessed at: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the- unthinkable/ Simons, Margaret (2007) Excerpt from The gift economy and the future, The Content Makers: understanding the media in Australia, Camberwell, Victoria, Penguin. pp. 204-217 on e-reserve Tapas, Ray (2006). Multimediality, Interactivity and Hypertextuality, in Online Journalism, New Delhi: Foundation Books pp. 34-59 on e-reserve Read More