Buzzfeed the Storyteller

Key Points

Storytelling has changed in the modern digital age. Every news article now is hyperlinked and Facebook shareable. The way a story is told has changed, but more so, the story and arguably the content have changed as well. New narratives are told by the word through images and lists, and no media outlet tells the story engaged with the public than Buzzfeed. Story telling is about the audience. Who is reading, and what do they want to read, determines what is written and more so the way it is written. Buzzfeed engages the public in a stronger way than any other "news channel" has ever been able to do. 

References

"BuzzFeed is no scrappy little start-up anymore. It’s a big, profitable, influential news organization." Buzzfeed was never considered a news organization until the way they told their story began to engage the public. Now, the public is more engaged than ever before. Buzzfeed is arguably one of the most shared websites on social media. Based on my own personal experience, I cannot think of I log on to Facebook and see at least one Buzzfeed article in my Facebook Feed. Now, it is a powerhouse. It is a distribution of news like no other. It puts news into lists and GIFS. It appeals to the audience's digital desire for something more than black and white text. 

For example, the most utilized feature on Buzzfeed exists on the trending topics page. On the page, articles are split into two sections: "articles trending now" and "top posts this week." Skimming the lists of articles, there is a mix present of pop culture and politically charged topics discussed. On a traditional news sight, I would doubt these two articles below would be listed under a same section. 

 

The two articles above represent the stories told by Buzzfeed. They are not text, they are images. They are told through the audience's lens of what they would see if they were there. More than anything, the stories Buzzfeed tell matter. Take the article on the left titled "24 things women can finally do." This article tackles the issue of feminism, but in a creative and comedic approach. These are the typical entertaining articles written by Buzzfeed. Then, there are the designated news articles, but really it seems like the majority of articles like the "24 things women can finally do" could also be argued as news. Buzzfeed treats everything as news from as silly as an article about dogs to Trump's gains in the polls. People comment and comment on each others comments on these articles. They share, and they discuss. They can even take quizzes related to these subjects. The public acts as the storyteller and the audience put together and combined by Buzzfeed. 

Class Image:

Questions

1. Do you think Buzzfeed is a reliable news outlet? Where does Buzzfeed's authority come from? Is it different from a traditional news outlets? 

2. Do you think Buzzfeed is almost like a parody to the traditional story telling of news? How an the two subjects of parody and Buzzfeed story telling relate?

Sources:

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_if_its_true.php

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sophiegadd/things-women-can-finally-do?utm_term=.qr6gz9B50j#.gbr4dN3AbO

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/heres-what-former-beauty-queens-think-of-donald-trump?utm_term=.ibGRyLpE3O#.qr6gz9B50j

Donald Trump and his Stubbornness about Releasing his Taxes

The article "What we can Learn from Donald Trump's Unreleased Tax Return" somewhat employs rigorous and empirical data, as the author did have to look through and analyze several released tax returns from this election, and previous elections. He also had to determine which candidates in the past released his/her tax return to the public, which candidates did not, the order in which the candidates released their respective tax returns, etc. The article has no real quantitative approaches utilized, but does use some qualitative approaches when discussing the candidates and their trustworthiness in releasing (or not releasing) their tax returns. The author discusses many qualities of candidates, and mentions how Hillary Clinton did not have the best tax return but still released it, so that she will not seem like she is hiding anything. The article was centered around this empirical, qualitative data that placed the focus on the qualities of the candidates and the observations made by the author.

The data is used by the author to predict the fact that Trump is hiding something. For years the norm has been that the presidential candidates release their tax returns to the public, and yet Trump refuses even after Hillary Clinton released her less than flattering tax return, and Mitt Romney did the same last year. The author is using the data to prove how Trump’s actions are very untrustworthy, and fairly unprecedented. He is also showing the way in which it would honestly benefit Trump to just release the tax return, as people would think he has far less to hide. But Trump is stubborn, and according to the author and his data, clearly has a secret hiding in his tax return.

The data could be reframed to show the way that not releasing his tax return might actually benefit Trump, as well as the voters, and might not indicate that he has a secret. Trump is a businessman and could potentially be protecting his many companies and assets. The author could also use the data to determine if there is any sort of connection between candidates refusing to disclose their tax returns and election support, and demonstrate why Trump may actually be making a smart decision. If the author flips the observations he is making and also lists the qualities of Trump that might validate his choice not to release his tax return, then the story would take on a whole new frame and a whole different meaning.

Link to article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/upshot/what-we-can-learn-from-donald-trumps-unreleased-tax-returns.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fupshot&action=click&contentCollection=upshot&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Remapping the Election

In a current Vox Video and article, Vox details the negative impact of the traditional visual aids used during November’s presidential election. In particular, the article argues that the presidential map used during the November election is visually deceptive, because small states like Massachusetts have many more votes than geographically large states like Montana, which have just a small electoral importance. While Americans may be familiar with the visual outline of the USA tinted in red and blue, the map itself says nothing about the electoral importance of each state. Instead, Vox author Liz Scheltens maintains that in visualising data, there needs to be a priority of the information that is important, specifically: geographic accuracy vis-à-vis electoral importance. This current map denotes the intersection of rigorous and quantitative analysis.

The Vox article applauds an alternative map produced by the New York Times that represents each state as a square that is proportional to the number of electoral votes of that state. Moreover, the geographic arrangement of the squares makes the map visually appealing an easy to read. The benefit gained through this revamped visualisation is the demonstration of the value of data journalism as practical. In particular, the square presidential map illustrates the same information as the traditional map, but organises the relationships in the data (between state population, size and number of electoral votes) so that the viewer does not have to think twice about where more/less votes are coming from. Vox’s own video visually portrays how the New York Times uses numbers artistically, combining the quantitative and empirical approach of Silver’s “Approaches to Journalism.” The impact of rearranging shapes and sizes probably places the proposed electoral map to the north-west corner of the diagram.  

The impact of a potentially new presidential map is tremendous. It may help voters to become more informed, journalists report more comprehensively during election night, and, perhaps most importantly, increase the efficiency of data analysis. The Vox article demonstrates in both its video and analysis of the New York Times creation that simple can be better. 

Donald Trump Borrows from Bernie Sanders's playbook to woo democrats

Recently Donald Trump has begun to change his views and proposals in preparation to battle Hillary Clinton in the primaries. The article describes how Trump has been taking some of Bernie Sanders’ ideas and proposals to try and win over some of the traditionally blue states. As far as types of data used, the story uses qualitative data almost exclusively. There are no graphs charts or numbers listed. Instead, the journalist pulls quotes from many different sources ranging in political views as well as social standing. Some of the people quoted are politicians working for Sanders, others work for Clinton and others are unaffiliated members of the house or senate. In addition, they have quotes from people not in office who would be effected by some of Trump’s newest ideas. The story is generally well thought out. There are very few anecdotes and it follows a relatively straight line of thought. The story essentially starts by talking about what Trump has changed his mind about and what his new ideas and proposals are. Then it compares those ideas to what Bernie Sanders’ proposals were. After that it is essentially all cleanup. The writer loaded the back half of the story with quotes and other qualitative data to support his claim that Donald Trump is “borrowing from Bernie Sanders’s playbook to woo Democrats”. While most of the data is opinion based; there is one quote from an Arizona Senator who does use numbers to help prove his claim that if Trump continues his strong anti-immigration campaign, he will not be able to win Arizona. This is essentially the only time in the article that qualitative data is used. I would have liked to see much more data in this article. One statistic I would like to see (which may not be available yet) is how his polls have changed since he has made these semi-radical changes to his campaign, compared to how Sanders’s and Clinton’s numbers have changed. Trump’s goal with these changes is to win over as many blue states as possible while still keeping the red states red. I would be interested to see if he has been successful or if his name and reputation is already to set in stone to be changed. One final aspect of the story that I particularly liked was how the writer barely mentioned Trump’s wall. Since Trump publicized his idea of building a wall on the southern border of the United States, essentially anybody who criticizes him uses that against him and it has almost become the easy argument.

Bernie's Data Defined

A recent Vox article aggressively asserts that Bernie Sanders has lost the race for the democratic nomination. I first chose this article operating under the framework of the chart in its approaches to journalism as I think the title being “Reality Check: Bernie Sanders has lost the race for the Democratic nomination” is an embodiment of one way to approach to data journalism. The article depends on the data gathered from quantitative research. It mentions how Sanders is behind by “300 delegates,” but then explains that he has a small margin of victory. The explanation given behind the quantitative statistic introduces and anecdotal story for the narrative to continue. It allows the writer to branch into a related topic about how he will therefore need to win every state to overcome the present deficit. The journalist makes inferences that are given power through the chart’s approach where there is a spectrum of a story being a multitude of forms from extremely quantitative and anecdotal to quantitative and rigorous. Data is used primarily here as a predictive model shaped from anecdotes hopefully to be formed into rigorous facts. 

Additionally, it is hard to find the line between the quantitative and qualitative research the article employs. The article uses secondary sources from stories in the New York Times and a few Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces like this. When using secondary research, it becomes much easier for a less exaggerated explanation to form. The majority of the story seems to be complimented by an inferred explanation from this research, depending on an anecdotal approach in-between a line of quantitative and qualitative driven data.

I find this piece extremely interesting, as the only data used was the data the author knew would help his story. In this circumstance, I know that there could have been potential data left out as it would not have helped the case the narrative was trying to approach and employ. Really, the article instead of using data, uses more already established facts known to the public to build upon its argument. For example, the article asserts that just because Bernie is running, it doesn’t mean that he is still in the race. The fact: Bernie is running, is known and no knew qualitative or quantitative relevant information. However, the article depends on this fact to build its next approach in shifting the story to why Bernie simply cannot win. Opperating under Nate Silver’s chart, I can see where the lines are blurred in data journalism where facts can be right and just but misrepresented just so a specific narrative can be framed using any combination of approaches that it can benefit from.

Link to article: http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11686336/bernie-sanders-lost-democratic-nomination