This is a news story from the Guardian’s website. It’s about the price competition of e-book between Amazon and Apple. To me, this is a well-written news article which has clear structure and high news value.
The author adopted a balanced structure to represent two opposed stands. In this lawsuit, the main plaintiffs are consumers of e-book and the accused are Apple, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. To show the news in a fair way, the author adopted a balanced structure to represent each side’s idea to the audience. This is a good idea since balanced structure can show audience news in an unbiased way. Also, it can display the conflict and drama elements in a single issue. Therefore, audience will feel more interesting in reading this news piece.
Another success for this article is that it addresses the news value of the whole lawsuit. The lawsuit is actually between consumers of e-book and five major companies include Apple, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. The author finds the newsworthy aspects about the lawsuit and then arranges the information according to their priorities.
The title of the news story is “Apple and major publishers face lawsuit over e-book ‘price fixing’”. This is very smart idea since Apple is the most famous one among these companies. Also when famous one has something to do with lawsuit, it adds to the news value. Furthermore, e-book’s pricing is definitely concerned closely with audience’s daily life. Thus in one word, the title is a great hook.
Instead of focusing on the argument between consumers and e-book publishers, the author relates the lawsuit to ‘Amazon's consumer-friendly $9.99 rate’. Related the lawsuit to Amazon can help audience understand how this lawsuit affects their daily life. And in some extent, the author extends the single lawsuit topic to general e-book pricing regulation.
In one word, I think this news story works very well because of the clear, effective structure and news value it represents.
As you mentioned this article shows clear news values, of human interest, drama and timeliness especially in regards to the hype around Apple products currently. Also most people have Apple products these days, so they will immediatley be drawn to such an article. Claire.
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