Comparing Media

For this particular assignment, I chose to compare the various media outlets that have been covering the ongoing investigation into the death of Yale student Annie Le. The initial story was broken nearly a week ago, but as more details have been revealed, particularly finding Annie Le, the news has been producing new pieces daily. Of course, the online news aspect of it has been explosive. Because it is all online, the articles can be produced mere hours or even minutes after the information is revealed. The particular online article I found was from nytimes.com and it is around 3 web pages long and is most likely the same story that appeared in the print version of the New York Times. Of course there are countless similar stories online about this event, numbering in the tens of thousands.

For the newspaper version of the story, I looked at the article in the San Francisco Chronicle from Friday, September 18. The story is a 1/8 page strip on page one of the section and a half page on the continuing page. It includes a picture of the suspect and a picture of the victim with minimal captioning. Above the headline is a sub head that says "Annie Le Case" which indicates that is just one article in a series of articles. This particular article quoted 3 sources, some investigators and some colleagues.

For the television version of this story, I found a video clip from CNN that was also posted to their website. The news clip is 2 minutes and 17 seconds long and highlights the press conference where the New Haven police announced they had arrested a suspect. This particular news clip was a very pared down version of the story and was the raw, unfiltered information. When being reported on, the story is filtered and put into the words of the writer. When they show the press conference un-edited you get the information straight from the source.

This story is no where near complete and will continue to be covered in the newspaper, video and online news forms.