Introduction
The legacy media I chose to analyse is ABC News, a public news program produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It provides the most reliable news and information service in Australia, offering live breaking news from Australia and worldwide, along with comprehensive expert analyses on finance and politics.
The New Daily is a digital-born news site that I wanted to analyse. As an online newspaper, it enables all Australians to read news covering global affairs, finance, entertainment, and lifestyle for free.
This essay provides a comparative analysis of the two news websites by considering the biographies, demographics, news style and content and digital features, evaluating how their delivery enhances news storytelling.
Biography
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was established in 1932 as the Australian Broadcasting Commission, taking over the national broadcasting service previously operated by private companies. It launched its first television broadcast in Sydney in 1956.
In 1983, it was renamed the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and restructured under the ABC Act 1983, with its operations broadly modelled on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The Act formalised ABC’s role as an independent public service broadcaster, with a charter to “provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard as part of the Australian broadcasting system consisting of national, commercial and community sectors”.
In 1995, ABC expanded into digital media with a multimedia department and the launch of its official website.
ABC News Online, part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is also located in Sydney’s Ultimo district, sharing the same address as ABC’s headquarters.
The ABC Annual Report 2024 demonstrates that as of the last pay period in June 2024, ABC had 3,904 staff members. The News division comprises 45.0% of the total workforce, which indicates a substantial number of employees working in the News department. However, the exact number of News Online staff is not separately disclosed.
The New Daily is an Australian online news publication that has been freely accessible since its launch in 2013. It was originally published on behalf of Industry Super Holdings, an organisation representing industry superannuation funds.
In 2024, The New Daily was acquired by Solstice Media, an independent Australian publisher, but it continues to offer content without a paywall. As for its funding, the media kit showcases a variety of advertising opportunities, such as leaderboard, MREC and sponsored content. These advertising options could be a major financial support for the company.
Rather than only focusing on hot news, The New Daily delivers ‘snackable’ news about the world where we live. It also covers politics, finance, health, sports, lifestyle content, entertainment, and opinion pieces.
Demographics
The ABC Annual Report 2024 reveals that in 2023–24, ABC News Digital reached 55% of Australians aged 14 and over each month, indicating that its content appeals to young and middle-aged groups.
Specifically, according to Similarweb, the age group of 25-34 years old accounted for the highest proportion, probably because the content it provides, such as breaking news and analyses of current affairs, can satisfy the needs of young workers to understand social dynamics.
The audience is fairly balanced in gender, generally well-educated, and has a large proportion in the middle and upper-income groups.
The media kit of The New Daily shows that the audience is also highly educated, with 60 per cent holding a university degree. 40 percent of the audience is identified as high consumers, with a median income of $90,000.
A large portion of the audience is aged 35 and older, including many middle-aged and older households, who are economically stable and focused on business, finance, and social issues at this stage of life.
Style and content
ABC News: Surfer missing after shark attack at Wharton Beach near Esperance – ABC News
The New Daily: ‘Fin circling’: Shark attacks surfer in chest-deep water (thenewdaily.com.au)
ABC’s story follows the traditional hard news reporting style by implementing an inverted pyramid structure, which also enhances its credibility. The language is objective and formal, avoiding the use of emotionally coloured vocabulary and highlighting the professionalism and strictness of ABC as an authoritative news organisation.
The shark attack story from The New Daily is still hard news, but they are more vivid in style than ABC News, as it adds situational descriptions that resonate more easily with the reader’s emotions. By using a range of emotive words such as “scream”, the reader can feel the fear of the people more directly.
The ABC journalist remains in an impartial position in the incident. The text quotes information from reliable sources, such as police claims and eyewitness statements, so that the story is both comprehensive and accurate.
The layout of the content, detailing the time, place, and scene of the missing surfer’s disappearance, as well as the history of past shark attacks in the area, maintains a balance between new events and background information.
In contrast to the ABC, The New Daily relied mainly on the witness and a government agency for sources. While the quote “The water next to the shark was dark and the shark’s fins circled around” draws the reader into the scene, the story lacks contextual background and history about the area where the shark attack took place, resulting in limited depth and an imbalance in reporting.
Brevity and scannability
Brevity has long been a core principle of web writing, as users often read news on mobile devices with limited screen space and prefer to access key information quickly (Bradshaw, 2023). Both stories have headlines of ten words, which is brief enough for mobile reading.
Regarding the paragraph, ABC News focuses on one main point in each paragraph, such as presenting details of the missing surfer incident (5W and 1H), followed by witness statements, and concluding with a history of past shark attacks in the area, making the story very effective.
The New Daily isn’t as clearly divided into paragraphs and themes as ABC News, but each paragraph is still very concise, as most consist of quotes from eyewitnesses and a government agency.
Bradshaw (2023) stated that users are “looking for headlines, subheadings, links, and anything else that helps them navigate the text on screen”. In other words, this behaviour can be seen as the “F-shaped pattern” (Nielsen 2006), which involves reading horizontally across the top first, then again slightly lower down, and finally vertically down the left side, forming the shape of an “F”. These two stories put the headline at the top of the page, matching the reader’s habit of starting at the top.
Besides, ABC News implements the inverted pyramid structure, giving the audience the most essential information directly. In contrast, The New Daily sets a scene as the lead describes a terrifying moment in which a woman witnesses her partner being attacked by a shark in shallow water.
However, Bradshaw (2023) argued that setting the scene should be avoided unless writing a long piece. Therefore, even though this lead can be engaging, it reduces the scannability, the core part for online journalism, especially hard news.
Moreover, both stories lack subheadings, which can “signal the content to come and give the reader numerous entry points into the text” (Bradshaw, 2023). Including subheadings improves scannability and benefits search engine optimisation (SEO). If relevant keywords such as “shark attack” or “surfer” were included, the articles could be more searchable and easier for users to find online.
Hypertext, multimediality and interactivity
According to Bradshaw (2023), hypertext is “the lifeblood of the web and one of the first things people look for when they visit a page”. That is to say, despite the limited word count of an online news article, hyperlinks allow readers to get more context. The two stories fail to include any links that provide the background information, such as shark attack coverage from the same area or official data on locations and times of previous shark attack events.
Multimedia storytelling refers to narratives that combine text with various forms of media (Bradshaw, 2023). The article from ABC News embeds a video showing the journalist reporting from the beach and an eyewitness interview. It strengthens the story’s credibility and authenticity. Besides, each of the stories embeds pictures, allowing readers to visualise the geographical location of the beach, the scope of the police search and rescue or the conditions of the waves.
Regarding interactivity, neither site offers a comment function. Sharing on social media is their only means of interaction, which can decrease interactivity. For example, if someone lives close to the location of the incident or knows a relevant expert, they are unable to leave a comment at the end of the article to add or correct misinformation.
Conclusion
Both stories convey clear and precise information about the shark attack incident. ABC News achieves better balance and depth through multimedia and contextual details, while The New Daily highlights vivid storytelling and audience engagement.
References
ABC. (2024, May 24). Legislative Framework. About the ABC. https://www.abc.net.au/about/legislative-framework/103700608
About the ABC. (2024, October 29). ABC Annual Report 2023-24. About the ABC. https://www.abc.net.au/about/plans-reports-and-submissions/annual-reports/abc-annual-report-2023-24/104533582
Bradshaw, P. (2023). The online journalism handbook : Skills to survive and thrive in the digital age. Taylor & Francis Group.
“Fin circling”: Shark attacks surfer in chest-deep water. (2025, March 10). Thenewdaily.com.au. https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/wa/2025/03/11/shark-attack-codingup
Media Kit. (2024). https://solsticemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TND-Media-Kit-Apr-2024.pdf
Nielsen, J. (2006, April 16). F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (original eyetracking research). Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content-discovered/
SimilarWeb. (2025). Demographics. Similarweb. https://pro.similarweb.com/#/digitalsuite/websiteanalysis/audience-demographics/
Smith, H., Smith, E. J., & Tap, K. (2025, March 10). Surfer missing after shark attack at Wharton Beach near Esperance. Abc.net.au; ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-10/shark-attack-duke-orleans-bay-esperance/105033196?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
Be the first to comment