Discussion Post: You Pick a News Story

For my post, I chose to write over a story regarding Hurricane Helene. I chose this story due to not only its importance in the media, but due to the relatability it holds for many of us. This made the story interesting, but also caused it to foster a sense of empathy within the reader. Going through my classmates' responses, some chose sports coverage, others chose crime. It is interesting to see how we all react differently to the news we read, and it goes to show that as a journalist, we really do need to make sure we take our audience into account within every journalistic decision we make. If we have an audience of Northerners who have not experienced a hurricane, they might not feel as drawn to or empathetic towards the victims of Hurricane Helene. If one has an audience of scientists, they might not be as interested in a story over the Port Neches- Groves High School football team. Without taking into concern our audience, we risk our stories getting lost in the mass amount that get published daily, and we risk losing our audience to competitors who will take their interests into account.

Alongside this, we also see how different journalists go about their writing in different ways. Within the two stories I compared, one focused more on the people, another focused more on statistics. This is just another way that the journalist must take their audience into account: which would they be more drawn to read?

Photo from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tennessee-hospital-roof-rescue-ballad-health-hurricane-helene-erwin-flooding/