"Apple and Amazon probed over e-book prices" tells that both Apple and Amazon has reached agreements with the major book publishers to not to offer discounts to their competitors. This means e-book prices are fixed and consumers are robbed of choice.
The news has 177 words in total, divided by eight paragraphs with only one sentence in each paragraph. The short report allows the audience to having patient to read the entire story, while the short paragraph helps to making the idea clear.
The story is newsworthy as Apple and Amazon are two leading digital retailers that have large markets all over the world; meanwhile, e-book (see video of Amazon Kindle) is becoming more and more popular nowadays, and the mainly concerns for most consumers are the price issue and having a broader choice. As a result, the story has a large impact on its audience, especially among young people, who are also the largest readership group of online news.
The news has a clearly leading paragraph. However, the story does not follow the 'five W and one H rule' very well. It does not answer when did the agreements take place and how did it happen.
The format is fine. It tells the major story at the top, finishing with the impact on consumer. The paragraph transition is smooth and logical.
It has three direct quotes and one indirect quote, which gives audiences more voices of the interviewee -- Connecticut Attorney-General Richard Blumenthal. This also helps to make the report more reliable.
The story uses a picture of 'Sydney IT consultant Jodie Miners with her Amazon Kindle e-book reader' on the right top of the news, giving an idea of what Amazon Kindle looks like. However, as a online news, it will be better to use a video and/or hyperlinks to the Amazon website instead of a simple picture.
Additional reading:
Same story but in business angle: E-book prices under scrutiny as US state launches antitrust probe
No comments:
Post a Comment