Welcome to my latest news tracker blog!
I was excited to dig into some of Boston.com’s headlines this morning, each of my blogs in the past has come right in the middle of Red Sox mania. I was excited to analyze a homepage that wasn’t completely dominated by sports news.
One look at the homepage this morning, and I realized how naive I had been.
I’m all for sports stories. I love sports stories. I just don’t think they should dominate a home page and alienate readers who aren’t interesting in sports.
Moving on – I feel that most of my ramblings so far have been related to the structure of Boston.com’s website, rather than their content, so I decided to have a closer look at their headline story.
The first thing that you strikes you when you glance at the story is the lack of cohesion between the headline and the cover image. The story is about an animated depiction of the Patriots’ Josh Gordon’s season. For the content of the story, the image is fitting. Yet, the headlines give nothing away.
On the face of it, it seems a strange choice of headline. But for me, it worked. I immediately asked myself “Why have are they using a cartoon to advertize a sport story?” I had to click on the story to find out.
The story itself suited the publication well, it was quirky but seriously and professionally reported.
It was written with a sense of satire, telling the story of Fraser Mundy’s animatations of Josh Gordon with both dignity and a sense of humor.
“Now we’ll get to follow his full journey,” the writer, Nicole Yang, quips.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
“After tracking the troubled receiver throughout his rookie year, breakout 2013 season, and ensuing twists and turns, Munden said he had been awaiting Gordon’s return to the league “with bated breath.” While watching Cleveland’s season-opening game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, a light bulb went off.
Why not harness his sense of loyalty toward Gordon into a professional project?”
One final glance at Boston.com web page and I found it interesting that they have produced no direct coverage of George H. W. Bush’s funeral, but provided a link to the globe’s coverage.
Join me next week for more on Boston.com’s relationship with the Globe and my final thoughts.
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