News websites have become the premier platform for being
informed. Many people use sites like Google News and Huffington Post to stay
informed. In this post, I will compare the two and give my reasons for why one
is better than the other.
On my initial visit to the Huffington Post website I was
very impressed by their website layout and design. It’s very simple and
inviting. They have a list of general topics on top of the feed of blog news.
It has every possible topic you could want relating to the news. From
entertainment news to medical and political news, the Huffington Post’s has a
wide variety of things they cover. The Huffington Post also has their own editorial
staff that does their stories. This is good, because it’s more personal to
people who credit the Huffington Post as their primary news source. The
Huffington Post has developed their own following, and since it’s all run by
real people, it’s safe to assume these real people have their own agenda, much
like other news programs and websites that have their own stories. This can be
good if someone wants to reaffirm their beliefs through the way they interpret
the news on the Huffington Post, but the argument could be made that the
Huffington Post way of delivering the news may be biased to a degree.
When I made my way to the Google News site I was surprised
by how simple yet unorganized it looked compared to the Huffington Post website.
There was a similar layout but the Google News site wasn’t as easy on the eyes.
The top stories were on the home site just like the Huffington Post so they
seem similar in many ways in my opinion. One thing that stood out for me was
the fact that the site only featured links to post published elsewhere. This is
a good thing when looking for different opinions from different sources on the
same topic, but can be bad because those sites (from my understanding) are
chosen by popularity.
I think Google News is the site I will use to get my
information. I think it’s good to get different views from different sites that
may have different agendas. The Huffington Post is just another site in Google News’s
feed. Huffington Post is a good site but
Google News provides more options as far as content is concerned.
One thing you brought up that I hadn't considered was that HuffPo is it's own news source, and the sense of personalization and ownership that must give to the reporters and editors. I think a sense of ownership rather than just being one of many stories on GoogleNews (from who-knows-where and by who-knows-who, because no one is paying attention to the source) might lead to a level of ethics not seen in other formats. I will continue to read HuffPo occasionally with that in mind. Ownership and accountability are good things.
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