Strat5

The fourth assignment under Strategy 5: News Judgment calls for comparing stories from your favorite newspaper and favorite news website.
I personally don't have favorite newspaper yet, but I do have newspapers that I read daily. Thus I'm going to compare a story from The Independent Florida Alligator and the Google News website. This story is about the continued relief the Salvation Army is providing to Haiti a year after its devastating earthquake.
The Independent Florida Alligator: The Salvation Army continues to provide Haiti relief
Google News: One year later, The Salvation Army continues to work in Haiti
The Independent Florida Alligator is a local newspaper for a college town while Google News compiles stories from the many media outlets on the Internet. Thus, the angle of these two stories reflects the newsworthiness in each area. Both stories first site Kevin Smith, who is the Salvation Army's director of emergency disaster services in Florida, as a source. Then both stories go on to use statistics to describe the amount of help the Salvation Army has provided to Haiti. Thirdly, they both quote and discuss more sources. Here is where the two stories differ: The Alligator story quotes the University of Florida student who is president of the Gators United for Haiti student organization, while the national story sites more sources from the Salvation Army.
These news products are the two I use most on a daily basis, each for its own reasons. The Alligator allows me to keep in touch with my immediate community. Google News, however, not only provides me with the most up-to-date sources from multiple media outlets, but it also allows me to customize the types of stories showing up on my page when I'm logged into my Google account. With the Internet so full of information updated all the time, I believe that having the ability to choose what information gets to me keeps the news from becoming an overwhelming entity and instead something I'm excited to read.