People Are Panicking About Toilet Paper And The Media Is Not Helping – Cameron Wilson – March 4 2020 – Buzzfeed News
This article covers Australian news outlets posting about the public panic-buying toilet paper. The focus of the article is the lack of information the news outlets include about there being no need to panic buy. The article is relatively brief and does a solid amount of research regarding Australian news outlets and their publications of the issue. The article also includes tweets from the public.
Part of my concern with the article is the lack of proof provided. While Buzzfeed News is a credible source, and it does appear that the research is solid, I would have really liked more hyperlinks to specific articles from news outlets and screenshots of posts to prove the point. The article includes only one screenshot of a 7News Facebook post, compared to the four tweets from personal profiles. Some of the links included are to the same 7News Facebook post and the accompanying article, another 7News article, and an article from the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Including more articles showing the lack information included in them, or even screenshots of these, would hone the point much better. Additionally, including articles/research of the need to not panic-buy would also help to prove their point.
You suggest some good ideas for improving the content of the Buzzfeed story, and in particular more hyperlinks and embeds as evidence for users of primary source material and research.
The story appears to be about all media (i.e. social and mainstream news) are freaking out about loo paper shortage, but it’s not very clear from the way the story is presented. I think the embeds from personal accounts are presented as evidence of the way a trending topic starts, which is then amplified by news media.
Your analysis should consider the features and functions of the Buzzfeed story using the appropriate naming conventions from Bradshaw and other readings (interactivity, hypertextuality, multimediality).
When you write for online, use conventions of good online journalism: provide links to the evidence you’re suggesting could improve the Buzzfeed story; assign relevant keyword tags; and use subheadings, shorter paragraphs, and images to break up or “chunk” your content.