BBC News
What kind of Brexit do voters want?- July 4, 2018
The British Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as the BBC, captures a variety of different stories ranging from focus on their central location in the UK to widespread international news advertised on different media platforms. Throughout the week, the BBC has explored topics from the World Cup, the Thai soccer team rescue, Brexit, nerve agent poisoning, and other pieces that seek to captivate an UK audience and a world audience as well.
Earlier this week, the BBC released a story on their main website regarding an important meeting being held between ministers and the European Union to discuss crucial details of a Brexit plan going forward. The article describes the meeting as a pivotal point for how the Brexit plan will unfold in the future. BBC discusses the divided standpoints as one wanting to completely separate from the European Union along with its market and customs union and contrarily continuing to engage in free trade with the European Union with citizens able to continue to work and live in the United Kingdom.
These impartial yet representative components of the article make the piece successful, including data from both “hard and soft” sides of the Brexit separation, as well as the large population of people who fall in between and do not know where to stand on the issue. With clear and straightforward information, the BBC’s visual graph components show the close percentages of people’s Brexit hopes, refraining from favoring one and giving representation to all sides.
The clearly shown close statistical data conveys UK residents who desire to have a single market, yet have free movement in where they live and work, people who want to sever ties with the all together with the European Union, and those who are not sure. The article is effective in providing insight on the difficulty that UK officials are having to appease the public in deciding to establish a vote on Brexit when there is so much division. While the divided population is an issue central to the UK, the article attracts attention and interest worldwide as the BBC effectively caters the article to readers outside of the UK as well.
Amesbury Novichok poisoning: Couple exposed to nerve agent- July 5, 2018
Another story from BBC this past week covers a deadly prevalent crisis in England regarding Novichok, a chemical nerve agent that recently poisoned ex-Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter. With that story already capturing significant media attention, another case of the poisoning has surfaced in England as BBC Breaking News indicates in the following tweet:
The concise tweet links to an article on the BBC main website, giving more information about the new finding. The article is straightforward and presents information from the police investigation in Wiltshire where the couple was found unconscious.
The BBC piece does not present an overt stance against Russia, who is accused of planting the Novichok chemical, however, the article does include the accusations that the UK government has made against Russia as the source of the attack in addition toRussia’s response stating, “The UK government blamed Russia for the assassination attempt but Russia has denied any involvement and accused the UK of inventing a ‘fake story.’” Giving representation to Russia’s response rather than just including England’s accusation makes it so that the UK’s blame is not validated by the BBC.
From a piece that I find impartial and informational for the most part, I had one issue with an included detail regarding the victims of the nerve agent. Under photos of the exposed couple, (see below) the article includes an derogatory accusation of the victims from police that slightly tarnishes the couples’ image as they are in treatment saying, “Wiltshire Police said it was initially thought the two patients had been using heroin or crack cocaine from a contaminated batch of drugs.” The basis of this claim is not included which I find problematic in a way, as the claim is exists on its own with no prior or additional info. Despite this information provided by Wiltshire police, the article is successful in its clarity and directness with information on the incident.
World Cup: England beat Sweden to reach the semi-finals- July 7, 2018
Scrolling through the BBC News’ Instagram profile, I found an article after being captivated by this image in the profile’s feed. The image shows a powerful reaction of this English soccer player and defender, Harry Maguire after beating Sweden in a 2–0 victory Sunday afternoon. The post’s caption notes of a link to a more detailed r article in the sports section of the BBC website online. After clicking the article, I found specific details of the match and how the English team came to victory through detailed descriptions of particular highlights.
The article does a successful job in describing the match without showing favor to the home team of BBC news, even including the imperfections of the match and their difficulties prior to victory. The piece then goes on to describe the history of the English soccer team in the world cup, emphasizing the historical significance of England’s performance in the Russian hosted World Cup. The BBC used an effective and powerful image to capture their audience with the photo used on their Instagram post, drawing myself to click the article to read about the victory which was very descriptive regarding the match and back-story while being manageable to read in a short time.
Thai cave rescue: the dramatic operation- July 8, 2018
An ongoing story that has made headlines worldwide in the past two weeks has been the rescue operation of a Thai soccer team and their coach from a cave system in Chiang Rai, Thailand. There the boys and coach have been trapped and unable to be retrieved from the cave due to flooding in the narrow tunnels. The BBC released a headline on Facebook today with an image that grabbed my attention immediately due to my previous knowledge on the difficult state of the rescue.
The post from BBC News has a promising first look, showing a rescue diver with a beaming smile on on his face. Although the post does not reveal any details of the rescue or even if the boys had been rescued at all, however, the rescuer’s expression of positivity amidst a dismal couple of weeks had me optimistic and drawn to what the article had to say, which I then discovered that four boys were finally able to be rescued.
The article included a chronological timeline of the rescue and live tweets from the operation, showing that four boys had been rescued and sent to the hospital. The format of this piece makes it easy and engaging to follow along with the logistics of the rescue, with real-time updates from real people, something that I find interesting and attractive in an article. With the grabbing image from the Facebook platform, the BBC strategically draws readers to engage with the article without using “click-bait.”