BBC News website: accessible or a puzzle to use?

When you first enter the BBC News website some of the most prominent features are the headlines which are typed in bold to emphasise the text thus enabling them to stand out amongst the other articles.

Many of the main headlines on the front page use images to illustrate the story and could be used to breakup the blocks of texts. This means that the site is more 'user-friendly' as it is easy to understand and navigate through, due to the use of links, bold fonts and the change of text colour to highlight categories and sub-categories.
One of the stories which was featured on the front page had the headline, Church condemns lesbian IVF use. This article's headline is typed in bold to emphasise the title and below this there is an image of the Cardinal who is featured in the story. The page is typed up in a very clear, readable font and features a grey box containing a key quote which can be seen in the story.

In general, this web page is very accessible because each news piece is split into different topics; the area they affect or happen in and also different subjects such as ; entertainment, science and education. This means that the site is less time-consuming and due to the fact that people do not like to spend a long time searching, this layout is effective and purposeful.

The Daily Dish; Journalism or just a blog?

Most successful journalists would not need to publicise themselves by writing a blog.

However, Andrew Sullivan has done exactly this by setting up a site to express his opinion as well as enabling others to express theirs.

The Daily Dish created by the British born, American political reporter is an intellectual blog which contains a mixture of fact and opinion.

But why would a well-established political commentator need to create a blog? The simple answer is he doesn't but by creating this website he is boosting his publicity and also earning more money through the adverts which are embedded into his page. But, as well as this he believes that by creating this blog he has opened up a new forum to allow others to express their opinion shown through his use of cross-referencing other bloggers.

However, although this site contains news items and articles which could be loosely labelled as 'journalism', there are articles such as Quote of the Day which are merely novelty items, possibly to give the blog variation and more interest.

So, what do I think the purpose of this blog is? I think it is there to be a tool where the author and bloggers alike can share their views and opinions on many things from the seriousness of American politics in Between Fear and Loathing to photos which they find funny or novel such as Squirrels!.

But, of course the question is, could it be considered journalism? I think that it could not be considered as journalism because it does not report news but merely shares opinions and ideas about different issues and could be described as more of a forum as Andrew Sullivan stated, than a journalistic site.

And the award for the worst internet provider goes to....

Ever since the beginning of the semester the main issue within the student campus has been the internet and in particular the internet service provider Keycom.

Every day there are problems whilst online. The worst one is probably the very slow speed at which the pages load, to the point of the window timing out because it has taken so long; therefore it takes 3 or 4 attempts just to load one website.

However, to add insult to injury students have to pay £120 a year (or even more if you are paying using a monthly direct debit) for a rubbish service and we aren't the only university to have these problems. This money could be spent on a much better internet service which should be something for the universities to think about.

As well as this I went onto Facebook the other day and there are several groups from different universities saying how bad Keycom are. You would have thought that someone would have done something by now considering this isn't the first year Farnham campus has had Keycom as their provider.

The main group (Keycom; improve your Keysurf internet service) proves once and for all that Keysurf is rubbish full stop, and that Keycom really need to have a look at the services they provide and please for everyone's sake improve it or give us our money back!!!