On the 9th March 2020, Cameron Wilson of BuzzFeed News published a news on the recent Facebook Is Being Sued Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
There are some points where the news should be improved.
1.Image — The image does not provide enough information to the readers. Readers all familiar with the facebook’s logo, if the journalist could select a image link information together would create more connections for readers such as the pictures I recommened. Also the first image needs a simple captoons.
2. Heading — The heading is not clearly for readers. In the news , it wrote as Facebook is being Sued Over The Cambridge Analytica Scandal, but when you finish the whole news, Facebook actually being sued by Australian authorities. As Bradshaw (2018) mentioned If the heading reflects the specific object, it will make the news more accurate and make sense to the readers.
3. Lacking Link — When mentioned about Cambridge Analytica scandal, this piece is also missing a very important hyperlink to an important source. I would rather put a Youtube video as a references or background information to readers, which means the reader could review this news more quickly and could have a better connection with present news and old news.
4. Interactivity — About the twitter’s picture posted by the OAIC, which is good. We can see through the screenshot .But it should included a hint or share sign to remind readers to click and open a new tab in twitter, otherwise the readers would think it as a picture not a actual link. If the link is more obvious, reminding readers to understand the news itself will actively increase the interaction between readers and the news itself, and also increase the enthusiasm and possibility of readers to participate in the news discussion. Therefore, It also improve the usability and functionality of this news.
Reference:
Bradshaw, P. (2018). The Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the digital age (pp. 72–133). Routledge.
Great work referring to Bradshaw in your analysis, though your in-text reference needs the page numbers in the citation. You have also used many of the techniques for good web writing, such as shorter paragraphs, a coherent structure (though subheadings using key terms would work better than numbered points). You have used appropriate photographs to illustrate the points you make, and they are correctly captioned and acknowledge the source. Your use of a featured image is good – it ensures the thumbnail appears on the home page.
Links you provide are embedded in text, and open in new tabs – great! You also offer an example of a video to link to that would enhance users’ understanding of the background to the story.
Regarding the embedded tweet, I think readers are accustomed to social media embeds and would understand that the tweet will open in Twitter. The key word tags should be 1-2 words long, so the ‘Facebook is being sued by Australia’ might become #facebook #australia #legal action, for example.