COM 125 #10

When hearing about a certain topic in the news today, you tend to hear the same basic information about it over and over. Depending on the type of subject it is based under politics, business, sports, or whatever, you will usually hear the same crap about the article. When comparing two different articles on the same topic, one of which was from the internet, and one from a news paper, as a reader you catch certain things about the articles content, as well as the structure and formality of the article. It is not all the same when you read in depth of the article from the perspective of two different sources.

The two articles that I have chosen for this assignment have both been based on a familiar topic all sports fans are aware of, which is the upcoming rivalry game between professional footballs top two powerhouse teams, the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts and Pat’s square off this coming Sunday in the RCA Dome, home of Indianapolis. The information that I had taken for this topic came from two well known sources. The internet based one I had viewed ESPN’s perspective and read about what they had to say about the upcoming brawl between these two teams. For the newspaper source, I had read through the front page story of the sports section on the Colts/Pats game of USA Today. After reading both of these articles, there were some significant differences in the way that some internet based articles and newspaper based articles take as their approach to getting their news feed to the public. In USA Today’s article, they gave some different information about the past of these teams. There had seemed to solely base their article on the upcoming event and the reasons to which team they though would win the game. The article pointed out some significant statistics of each team their best players, and the recent games of the past between the two. It was more of a general article, something you were likely to expect from a nationally recognized newspaper.

On ESPN’s website, the leading source for sports news and information, they gave more of an in depth analysis of the upcoming game. They gave some general opinions and stats of both teams, to look to decide which one of them will finally be beaten after the 9^th week of the 2007-2008 NFL Season. As you might or might not know, both the Patriots and the Colts are the only undefeated teams left in the NFL this year, so this game is pretty big for both clubs. With the article online, it seemed that when reading it you had a better sense and a better knowledge of what you thought about the game, as well as football in general. The articles content consisted of a many inputs from former pro players, and hall of famers in the NFL. Their interviews with ESPN had seemed to give them an edge in reliability in terms of information, over USA Today’s article. This is just my opinion. It may seem reasonable that ESPN’s article seems more reliable because they are “the leading source in sports news”, according to their motto. This may seem that I am taking the side of the ESPN article, but I think it is natural because they are a sport based website that delivers information. This is probably not true for every article in general that is printed There is a major difference in general, however between print news and online news. It seems as if online news you get more of a real insight to ones opinion, where as if you are reading an article from a news paper, you seem to just be getting the “facts of the story”. To me it seems this way. IN the online article, it gave me a better way of understanding the upcoming game. In the print article, it seemed like they were just reiterating stats and the story of the game itself. Both get the job done in delivering information, but some may consider one to be a better prospect then the other.

References:

Bell, Jarret. "A Rivalry thats tough to beat". USA Today. 1 Nov. 2007: C1.

Garber, Greg. "View from the top: Hall of Famers analyze Brady, Manning". ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=3088115&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1. (1 Nov.2007).