LOGO: AJC1 on Flickr.
Well, the semester is coming to a close, and so is my newstrack blog. Some takeaways from my months of following BuzzFeed News:
-Legacy news media should embrace listicles.
-I am so sick of Twitter embeds.
-I’m going to keep reading BuzzFeed News.
Thanks for following along! My final project for this class will be up soon, and I’m really proud of it.
Every semester, Jennifer Carter trains groups of students in a fitness class called Marathon Training. She is an area director for Boston University Residence Life, but according to the Res Life website, her “true passion is running.”
The “training” part of the marathon class involves more than just learning how to run. Carter brings in nutritionists, psychologists, and all manner of experts to teach students about the nuances of long distance running.
In honor of the 121st Boston Marathon last Monday, I sat down with Carter and a former student, Jasmine Hu, who just completed her second Boston Marathon.
Both Carter and Hu have run for Lingzi Lu, the Boston University student who died in the Boston Marathon bombing four years ago. The book and T-shirt in Carter’s office both commemorate Lu.
This week’s newstrack follows yet another exhausting 180 in global politics. British Prime Minister Theresa May will hold an election in seven weeks. To Americans, that sounds crazy. Our president can’t randomly decide when he or she should run for reelection. Thankfully, BuzzFeed brought in Hannah Jewell, a staff reporter based in London, to give us befuddled Yankees an explanation.
The result is an explanatory piece disguised as a listicle, much like the Gibraltar article I looked at a few weeks ago. It’s called “Hello Americans, Here’s Why The UK Is Having YET ANOTHER Election!”
The Gibraltar article and this one have a lot in common. They’re both works of substance disguised as clickbait (does that just make them good clickbait?). They’re both funny and easy to understand. This election article, though, is about something happening right now–not a history lesson.
Jewell’s article is structured like the Gibraltar one, simple sentences followed by funny pictures. After announcing the crazy news that Britain might have yet another political shakeup, she represents the situation with this fun Elmo meme:
After that, she writes, “You may feel as if you have the monopoly on crazy news, America, but it actually turns out we are ALL ON FIRE AT THE SAME TIME. (It’s part of our special relationship.)” This is part of the article’s attempt to cater to confused Americans.
Although Jewell uses humor and silly pictures to liven up her writing, this is not The Onion. She has some real information to get across, and as the listicle progresses, she does a good job of it. Once she’s through describing former British PM David Cameron as “a man known throughout the land for his beautiful moon face and sad, empty eyes,” she launches into detailed political analysis. PM May is trying to strengthen her parliamentary majority with this election, potentially making the Brexit negotiation process a whole lot easier for her and her Conservative party.
Clinging to old formats can only hurt news organizations, and BuzzFeed News’ listicles continue to be funnier and more accessible than any explanatory piece a legacy paper might produce. In one article, Jewell jokingly implies that David Cameron had a “fuck it” (that’s a quote from the article) attitude towards the Brexit referendum and Theresa May said “YOLO, bitches!” when deciding to hold an election. Whatever your attitude towards profanity, it certainly gets the message across in an understandable and memorable way.
Some of my fellow journalism students might call me a blasphemer for this, but hey, let’s write more funny listicles!
PHOTO: Bernal Saborio on Flickr.
Before I start this newstrack, let me say that I hate Delta Airlines. Once, I was on a redeye from Los Angeles to Boston and they delayed the flight four hours because the pilot called in sick and Delta never scheduled a new one. Most passengers had boarded when somebody realized there was no one to fly the plane, and we all had to get off. So this newstrack is partly schadenfreude.
I’m looking at a BuzzFeed News article called “Delta Has Canceled Thousands Of Flights And Everyone Is In Hell,” written by Venessa Wong.
It strikes me every week how different BuzzFeed News is from other outlets. It’s online-only, which isn’t so strange, but it cements that online-only feel with its attitude. Can you imagine The New York Times running a headline like that? The Boston Globe? Maybe the subhead, “No spring break is safe,” on a day when an editor is feeling lighthearted. But if there were internal debates on whether or not to use the word “pussy” during then-candidate Donald Trump’s pussy-grabbing scandal, then I can’t imagine the Old Gray Lady throwing the word “hell” around.
The effect is comic, and that’s the point. It’s an interesting feature BuzzFeed uses across its platform, in everything from listicles to news. They’re using clickbait tactics on regular news stories. Nothing else in Wong’s piece is goofy—it’s a straight hard news story. But I was pulled in by the funny headline.
A rapid-fire look at some other elements in the article that BuzzFeed just loves: social media embeds and crowdsourcing. Instagram pictures of gloomy passengers waiting at airport gates and, at the bottom, instructions on how to get in touch with Wong if you have a harrowing Delta story. Once again, using its online structure to its advantage.
Since I live in Kenmore Square, I usually try to avoid Fenway on game days. Too crowded, too noisy, and too much FOMO–baseball tickets are expensive.
Yesterday, though, the Red Sox were facing the Pittsburgh Pirates in their second game of the season, and I had an assignment. I pushed through the throngs, along with my project partner Olivia Gehrke, to find out what people love about Red Sox games.
Spoiler alert: Nobody said baseball. Enjoy the (goofy) video.
Olivia Gehrke assisted in filming.
And just so you know, the Red Sox won the game after 12 innings, despite my interviewees’ unenthusiasm. They beat the Pirates on opening day, too, so the Sox–newly sans their famous slugger David Ortiz–start the season off with a couple victories.
The final game of the series against the Pirates was scheduled for today but ended up postponed due to rain. The game has been rescheduled to Thursday, April 13.
My professor wanted me to make a timeline as an exercise this week! She assigned me a topic as well: student protest.
I focused on student protests from the 1920’s the the 1960’s. This is a skeleton of a timeline, but it was fun to learn how to use Tiki-Toki!
https://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/821548/Student-Protest-in-America/
PHOTO: The HMS Dragon near Gibraltar. Photo by Dave Jenkins. From Defence Images on Flickr.
This week, we return to BuzzFeed’s trademark format, the listicle. For this one, though, BuzzFeed News used it for something more informative than pictures of Arab leaders snoozing.
Matthew Champion’s piece “Just What The Hell Is Going On With Gibraltar And Brexit?” uses the listicle form to make an old, complicated historical issue understandable and accessible.
Now that Britain has invoked Article 50, officially kicking off the Brexit process, Gibraltar finds itself in a confusing situation. Geographically, Gibraltar is on the Iberian Peninsula, on the southern coast of Spain. Britain has owned the land for a few hundred years.
Champion writes that in the wake of Brexit, Gibraltar’s future is hazy, thanks to a clause in some draft guidelines stating that Britain and Spain agree on any Brexit-related trade agreement involving Gibraltar.
Champion provides a concise summary of Gibraltar’s complicated history and the even-more complicated modern political issues surrounding it. He does this in what is essentially a listicle format without the numbers.
The sentences are in large, boldface type, and each one is followed by an image that illustrates the subject of the sentence. For example, the sentence saying that British Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50 has a picture of Theresa May.
Overall, this listicle is easier to read than a big chunk o’ text. Champion avoids jargon in favor of clipped sentences and humor, two things ideal for an online platform. Someone who rarely reads the news would have no trouble understanding this article.
This piece highlights one of my favorite things about BuzzFeed news: accessibility. I don’t revile the listicle as the death of good journalism. I welcome it as a helpful tool to get more people reading and supporting good journalism.
Illustration by Andre Gawan for Tech in Asia.
When I think of BuzzFeed, we don’t think of news first. We think of gifs, zodiac quizzes, and BuzzFeed’s bread and butter: the listicle.
BuzzFeed’s celebrity and pop culture coverage uses listicles liberally, but I hadn’t seen one yet in BuzzFeed News. Today, I found one, written by Rose Troup Buchanan.
The title: “A Bunch Of World Leaders Fell Asleep At This International Summit And The Photos Are Amazing.”
It’s exactly what it sounds like. The listicle begins with a description of the annual Arab Summit, where 16 Arab leaders gathered to discuss issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This article, though, isn’t focused on the topics of discussion. It’s about listing all the leaders who fell asleep during the meeting, along with funny pictures of them snoozing.
After that, Buchanan includes Tweets about the sleepy statesmen, some of which are indignant or sarcastic, but many are funny memes.
This isn’t the only time BuzzFeed News has covered the sleep habits of Arab leaders. In 2013, then-Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi caught some Z’s at that year’s Arab Summit, and BuzzFeed reported on that, too.
I’m fine with a goofy news story now and then, so I don’t mind these listicles. Plus, contrary to the views of some purists, I think listicles can be the best way to explain an issue to somebody, especially when they are just learning about it for the first time. This listicle isn’t a great example of explanatory journalism, but it made me laugh.
Let’s get an actual article about the actual summit to go along with it, though, BuzzFeed. Don’t let this be a standalone—we need the meat of the story along with the laughs.
PHOTO: Warren Towers, a dorm at Boston University. Photo by Brian Chang-Yun Tsu from Wikimedia Commons.
For my final story for JO304, I’m going to be focusing on housing affordability at Boston University and cheaper alternatives to traditional dorms. I created a small Storify that I will be adding to as my research continues.
I’m going to try to focus on the Harriet E. Richards, or HER House. It’s a communal living house for women relying on financial aid at Boston University who want a more affordable housing option. I’m excited to get in touch with current residents to get their perspectives.
This may seem like a weird title for a blog post about an online-only news outlet. Hear me out.
In previous newstrack blogs, we’ve established that BuzzFeed News is on its way to being better at the internet than any other news source. Embedded social media elements! Crowdsourcing data! Accessible formatting!
BuzzFeed doesn’t always incorporate these elements, apparently. And it should.
Take Paul McLeod’s Republicans Are Nearing A Last-Minute Deal To Save Their Health Care Bill for example. It is constructed much like any other online news piece. A headline, summary, and picture at the top, and then a big old chunk of text, uninterrupted by anything.
This is uncharacteristic for what I’ve seen from BuzzFeed so far, and I’m not sure I like it. The online elements BuzzFeed usually employs so well aren’t present here. Maybe it’s because a story about legislative deals doesn’t lend itself to multimedia—but I disagree. No embedded tweets from House members scrambling to get President Trump’s Affordable Health Care Act passed? In comparison, this piece is jarringly empty.
This is in no way a comment on the content of the article. It just doesn’t include what I’ve come to expect—and enjoy—from BuzzFeed News.
Suarez Tracks the News 
