This article compares two new story about the current wildfire situation in California.
One story, titled “Winds will continue to spread the California wildfires” is a broadcast story by CNN, that shows the weather forecast for the region and explains what that weather could mean for the situation at hand. The other story is a collection of updates by the New York Times that is updated in real-time as new developments become available.
The CNN story does a good job focusing on one aspect of the situation which is the windy conditions that are currently fueling the wildfires. The meteorologist is easy to understand and uses simple language to describe the conditions at hand. He also does a good job staying calm and collected given the less than promising forecast he is presenting. The disadvantage of the broadcast format is that it is impossible to present all aspects of the story in such a short amount of time. This segment focuses on one aspect and does a complete job.
The NYT story is much more complete in terms of coverage but is very long and detailed, which makes reading the article time-consuming. What helps is that due to the updated format of the story, bolded headers mark different updates, which makes it. easier to maneuver through the mass of information. The authors do a good job of being detailed and complete while staying objective and calm in their writing. This story covers most aspects of the fires from evacuation plans to what major buildings and highways are threatened.
Overall the main difference between the two stories is that the broadcast story has limited time to work with while the print story has nearly endless space to be as complete as possible. This results in the very clear an concise nature of the broadcast story, while the print story is not holding back words in an effort to be as complete as possible.
Sources:
CNN:https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/california-fires-los-angeles-october-2019/h_e3ab9350057796a2220e342166fa57fb
NYT:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/us/getty-fire-california.html
Those are the differences in a nutshell, Nik. Print definitely has the advantage of being able to present more information. But with that come’s the reader’s time commitment.
TV is also better at updates, but you have to get a live feed. Those updates you’re getting with the NYT have to be written first, then posted. Maybe not a huge time delay, but not live either.