Home Affairs Minister Tests Positive – ABC Online

The news that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s positive test for coronavirus broke on Friday afternoon.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/peter-dutton-diagnosed-with-coronavirus/12055104

Headline and Delivery

 

The headline from the ABC story was followed by related coverage and key points to the right. This may have been a good area to include a social media sharing option rather than at the end of the article. While photos and hyperlinks do break things up, the lack of headings does see sections such as the recounting of Dutton’s travels interspersed with other elements of the story, impacting on the overall delivery.

SEO

The ABC article covered all angles of the story, from Mr. Dutton’s personal Tweet revealing his positive test, to what it means for other Federal Government members such as the Prime Minister, and even to the Home Affairs Minister’s whereabouts following a recent trip to the United States. The related coverage and key words related to the unfolding spread of coronavirus aids search optimisation.

Embedded Links

The ABC embedded many relevant facts of the unfolding pandemic, providing hyperlinks to recent Australian Government measures, individual retail chain policy and steps taken by overseas nations. As the reader gets towards the recount of Dutton’s recent travel diaries, these excessive hyperlinks do somewhat convolute the main point of the story. Information may get lost as the reader becomes overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information related to the story. Another thing lacking from the story is an embedment to Mr. Dutton’s Tweet to accompany the quotes and improve readability.

1 Comment

  1. Good choice of story for your analysis.
    You have embedded the story link, but it should open in a new tab, not in the same page. You have also structured your post well, using subheadings and shorter paragraphs, chunking information, and creating white space. The screenshot is misplaced under the “Embedded Links” subheading – it needs a short line to offer context for the image, and as it is the heading is easily missed.
    You use bold text for your subheadings – in future posts, use heading tags to make them more SEO-friendly (found at the top left of the visual post editor, in a drop-down menu from ‘Paragraph’). You should also assign relevant keyword tags to your post.
    Agree there should be an embed (embedment is a creative word!) of the tweet cited lower down in the story, both for visual relief and to offer links to primary source material.
    You mention that users may be overwhelmed by information towards the end of the story – suggest ways this information could be presented to make it easier to absorb (lists? Graphics?)
    Images you use should be captioned and attribute the copyright holder or source of the image, even where it seems obvious (as with the screenshot you have used).
    You use some of the naming conventions for the features and functions of online journalism. In part 2 of the assignment make sure you refer to Bradshaw and other readings to support your analysis.

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