Online News Writing Exercise

Exercise 1: Go to a news web site and see if it measures up to these criteria for online writing:

SF Gate, Home of the San Francisco Chronicle

1. Do the news items reflect immediacy? No, not on the home page: the stories there are dated. Right now, the current wildfires and major evacuations occurring just 400 miles away aren't even mentioned on the home page. One has to choose the Bay Area & State link in the index on the left to view the page where that current story is published.
   

2. Does the site try to help readers save time? Yes, there is a shaded box page-link index on the far left on the page, where a reader would intuitively look.

3. Is it quick and easy to get information? Yes, by clicking once on the aforementioned links, we can quickly locate the stories of the hour. Page load times are fast, so readers are likely to wait a few seconds to read the page.

4. Does it provide both visual and verbal information? Yes, almost every major article link had a graphic image that was relevant. Today on the web version of the Chronicle, there was the same financial chart used about bank equity needs as there was in its print version. The chart was almost necessary to correctly summarize the story for the public.

5. Do the stories contain lists and bullets to make them easier to scan? Lists, no. Bullets are used often in fast-facts boxes and article subheadings.

6. Are the stories broken into "chunks"? Yes, most of the articles are "chunked" for readability. Only very complex stories are written in longer forms, which is preferable for print.

7. Do stories provide hyperlinks to additional information? Most of the stories in the web version are final and do not contain additional links.h)

8. Are there opportunities for readers to "talk back"? Yes. There is an index link to the opinion page to enter comments as well as the opportunity to comment and discuss the stories at the bottom of every article.

9. Does the site use multimedia to enhance understanding and add appeal? Yes. Perhaps the e-edition has more, but the free San Francisco Chronicle website edition has live views of traffic, weather patterns, updated home sales, movie trailers and advertisers' images and video clips.