Three News Websites

The three news websites I decided to use were cnn.com, cbsnews.com, and abcnews.com. The first thing I noticed was that cnn.com and cbsnews.com each had a large headline about cancer deaths dropping for the second straight year. Abc News, however, had a large main headline about OJ Simpson’s book about hypothetically murdering his ex-wife. CNN and CBS each had one main headline accompanied by a picture, whereas ABC had the OJ Simpson headline along with four other headlines that alternated.
CNN had stories in their top headlines about deaths in Iraq, the death of an Al-Qaeda figure, bombings, and other stories containing facts. The CBS website seemed to be dominated by stories containing commentary, such as Senator Clinton being against troop buildup in Iraq, or a commentary discussing whether more troops are needed or not. ABC News focused less on Iraq stories than CNN did, and included many stories about unusual things or celebrities. Top ABC headlines included an Indian movie star getting married, and the heaviest man in the world.
ABC seems to appeal to people who may be more interested in celebrities and unusual stories, as opposed to the emphasis on war articles from CNN and CBS. Nonetheless, all three of them appeal to adults who are interested in reading the news to begin with.
The site that I liked the least was CBS. This website was very cluttered and confusing to navigate, with many different sections having links scattered randomly on the front page. I liked CNN because it is very easy to navigate, and includes top stories right up front that I personally care about reading.
All three of the sites appear to be fair and balanced to me, even though they focus on different types of stories. I was able to find stories pertaining to things like health and sports, along with the war in Iraq. None of the sites stood out to me as having a biased opinion in their stories either, which makes me believe they are fair and balanced.