Well the end of the semester is already upon us, which means this is the last beat blog post for #loweclass. I have enjoyed covering a beat website for the semester. This is the first time that I have ever done something like this, and I can say that I have learned a lot. The Orlando Sentinel had some strengths and weaknesses when it came to their site. Overall I came to the conclusion that it is a great publication to come to for local news, not national news.

Some strengths were the video gallery, the photo galleries, The Daily Disney, and the travel page. Although not all of these had original Sentinel content on them, they did display good content. Some of the content was taken from the AP, Chicago Tribune, or CBS. All of strengths were good sources for any local Floridian. My favorite out of the above would have to be the Daily Disney component of the Sentinel. I thought it was a great idea and it is extremely useful for anyone that visits Disney World, which is a lot of people.

The Sentinel could have benefitted from a different layout. All of the pages were plain white, with only colored text. The pages are in need of some serious color. There also could have been more interactive features on the website, like how CNN has a twitterfeed on the side of their page. The Sentinel is definitely lacking in the technology department.

Overall the Sentinel is a good news source for locals. They publish necessary content for their readers, although not always original content. If you are looking to find out the score of the Orlando Magic game or good hotels around Disney World, the Sentinel is your place.

Although the Orlando Sentinel did not have all original coverage of the Boston bombings, it did have a lot of coverage. Most of the videos and photo galleries displayed on the homepage of the site involved content related to the bombings. I think that it is great that the Sentinel offered so much coverage, because eventhough it wasn't a local tragedy, it still is a major newsworthy event.

The Sentinel didn't really seem to do anything different from other publications. They used a lot of their material from the Boston Globe, AP, and Reuters. I realize that the bombings didn't occur anywhere near Orlando, but the Sentinel should have had at least one original article.

The Sentinel did at least have a story, from another news source, on their homepage throughout the week. This was helpful for people who do strictly get their news from the Sentinel. When you clicked on that homepage story, along the side of it was all other related stories. There were also photo galleries and videos on the other side of the page.

I do think in a situation like this that the Sentinel should let the bigger publications cover the story. Since there were so many twists and turns with the events that happened between Monday and Friday, I think it was better that the Sentinel didn't publish anything. They could have easily gotten their facts wrong and readers would not trust their reporting.

So clearly the Sentinel didn't originally cover the bombings, they did provide enough information for people on their site. If I did just go to the Sentinel for news about the bombings, which would not be my first choice, I would still understand what was going on. The Sentinel did a good job of pulling from other sites to cover the bombings.

Mira Lowe, the senior features editor of CNN, visited #loweclass this past Wednesday. She really showed passion for what she was doing and it was great to see someone be so successful in an area of work that I am interested in as well. Lowe talked about our blog post assignment from last week, good blogging techniques, packaging at CNN, and social media. She really showed us the ins and outs of CNN.com and I was thrilled to learn about it through the eyes of the editor.

Before she started going in depth about the CNN website, she explained some terminology that CNN uses. She explained that the homepage is like the front door of a house, you can basically get anywhere on the website from the homepage. The stories on the homepage are categorized into T stories and C stories. T stories are top stories and C stories are centerpiece stories like videos and such. The word sections is used interchangably with verticals and channels.

Lowe believes that CNN digital still needs some more work and that she is continually tweaking it. One of the problems is that the archive section is a little hard to maneuver. She says that once it falls off of the page that is very hard to find again. The entertainment section and technology section are two sections that do very well for CNN. She also let the class know that the website is very male dominated, which came as a surprise to the whole class.

CNN has three main blogs:This Just In blog, the Marquee blog and the Belief blog. The This Just In blog covers quick breaking news with live blogging, they do not live tweet. The Marquee blog covers entertainment news while the Belief blog focuses on faith and sprituality. There are other blogs on the website but they can come and go with interests.

Other features on the website that Lowe went through were the iReport page, the photo page, and one story that really touched her. The iReport page is where anybody can submit a story to CNN on just about anything. An editor can amend it and then approve it before posting it on CNN. I think that this is a really great opportunity for anyone to cover news and contribute to the news world.Lowe showed the class the photo page. She believes that photos are always going to be important and should always be included in a story. 

While Lowe was deciding on jobs, she saw that CNN did a story about a boy who was dying from cancer. She thought the piece was great and that the story made her choose CNN. She showed the story to the class and it was incredible. Overall Mira Lowe's visit was incredibly helpful. I loved how she shared an insider's perspective to the news room, let alone one of the biggest news rooms in the world. Definitely made me realize that I want to be working in a news room.

This week's assignment for #loweclass was to compare our beat website with that of CNN.com. The sections that we were told to focus on were entertainment, technology, health, living, and travel. There are many things that I like about my Orlando Sentinel beat, but compared to CNN.com, there really is no comparison. CNN.com provides news that benefits everyone around the world, whereas Orlando Sentinel covers local news for Floridians. In order to show how much I like CNN's coverage I will be keeping score between the two sites on each of the channels.

First off the Orlando Sentinel does not even advertise their technology section. In order to find it you must search it in the searchbar. The actual page for the technology section is very boring and the layout is way too simple. You would expect to see good use of technology, especially on the technology page. There are some videos about technology products like smart phones and tablets. There is also a twitter feed that shows different Sentinel reporters tweeting about technology. Overall the page is kind of boring and lackluster.

CNN's coverage of technology is great. I love how the page is presented and all of the different topics that are covered. My favorite part is the What Matters section of the page. I think it is great because those three stories are probably the biggest stories of the day. If someone came to the technology page and wanted some quick articles to look at, those would be the best to go to. Also under the latest news section of the technology page there are different tabs for the different uses of news. There are social media, mobile, web, and gaming gadgets. Under all of these categories you can see the different technology articles that correlate to each.

Technology Channel winner: CNN

Now I was torn on the next channel, travel. I love the way that the Orlando Sentinel covers travel. It is a great topic for them to cover because of the city and the fact that it is home to Disney World. They have  the Daily Disney under travel, which I go into great detail about in one of my previous blogs. I know that anyone traveling to Orlando would be well informed by looking at the Sentinel's coverage of travel. Also the fact that I love Disney World is making me a litle biased.

CNN's coverage is obviously more extensive because it does cover all of the vacation hotspots around the world. I love all of the pictures and videos that the page provides. The current airport delays section is genius. Anyone would be able to go to CNN to check for delays, which provides the site with a lot of traffic. I thought that it was a great place to put something like that. The fact that the page is broken down into hotels, eateries, etc. makes it really easy to navigate.

Travel Channel winner: Tie

Entertainment was an easy winner for me. CNN's coverage was absolutely incredible. Being the celebrity enthusiast that I am, CNN was hands down the winner for me. I throughly enjoyed all the articles and pictures of celebrities. These articles were writtern for people everyone, because most people know who the celebrities are. I also thought the Quote Board was a really nice touch.

The Orlando Sentinel's coverage of entertainment is good, for people living in Orlando. The page focused on local bands or plays. It didn't really have an sparkle to it. There were some videos, but the page was pretty plain. There also was not any coverage about celebrities or any well known people for that matter. An article about Roger Ebert's death was buried in the middle of the page, and was not even written by an Orlando Sentinel reporter.

Entertainment Channel winner: CNN

The Orlando Sentinel combined their Living channel into Life and Family. I thought the same about this page as I did the others. Good coverage for people in Orlando, but the articles were mediocre. The articles were about different programs for children and updates to malls in the area. Nothing really breaking news worthy. Again would be useful for locals in the area.

Again I liked the way that CNN broke down the Living page. I thought each topic had a lot of depth behind it. I liked the topics such as: identity & culture, love & relationships, and parents & kids. I think anyone who were to come the living page would get something out of it. It really touched a variety of people with all those different topics.

Living Channel winner: CNN

The last channel that I analyzed was the health channel. I really enjoyed the Q&A section with Experts on CNN's page. I think that is really helpful for anyone who has health questions. The Health A to Z on the side of the page has just about any category related to health that someone would want more information about. The layout of the page is really great.

The Orlando Sentinel has a decent health section. It finally has a section on the page for national health, which relates to anyone. I think the section is great and will probably have a lot of traffic, but I just wish it wasn't buried on the page. The Orlando Sentinel also offers video on their health page, which is beneficial. Overall the Sentinel did a good job covering health.

Health Channel winner: Tie

Overall I liked CNN's coverage of the above channels. I think it is a great website for anyone to go to, to get information about anything. The Orlando Sentinel is a good publication for locals. I think it provides great news, but it just doesn't affect as many people as CNN news does. I personally would go to CNN for my news, but if I lived in Orlando I am not quite sure which publication I would turn to.