The fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in France has been covered internationally by numerous news organizations. The way the stories are told differ from one another due to each organization having a different perspective and target audience. Some news organizations covered the story in a similar way and used the same facts and sources. Other organizations chose to tell the story from a completely different perspective so much so that the main idea of the article is different from the others.
Some organizations wrote the story with a factual, objective style with no overwhelming bias. The headline that was written for the Vox article was “Notre Dame, one of Paris’s most iconic landmarks, damaged in a massive fire”, the article goes on to tell what happened with the fire at Notre Dame with a matter of fact style of writing. The Associated Press wrote the story is a similar way, their headline was “Massive fire engulfs beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris”. Other organizations that chose to write the story in this way include Aljazeera, the Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, and Vice. It was surprising to read the Vice article in this way because Vice has a reputation of being edgy, however the article that was written was not particularly edgy. These organizations also used the same quotes from the French President and included some of the same facts that specifically included some of the artifacts that were saved. The articles written this way all mentioned by name the thorn crown that was worn by Jesus during the crucifixion and also the stained glass that make up the windows of the cathedral.
A different perspective was given from articles such as NPR, BBC, Politico and the L.A. Times. The article written from NPR was not a traditional journal article, it was written in the form of a radio transcript. It was written in this way because they had live on field reporters broadcasting on live radio. BBC described what happened from multiple points of view and did their best to remain objective. This is different from the other articles because BBC showed that the tragedy is not just an issue for France but a global issue. The articles from Politico and the LA Times were written from a clearly American point of view. The Politico article about the Notre Dame Cathedral fire was more about American politics than the actual cathedral fire. The article was all about Donald Trump and him weighing in on what should be done to put out the fire. Instead of the main idea being the actual fire, the main idea was Donald Trump’s thoughts and feelings about the fire.
Even though some articles cover the same topic in a different way this exercise has shown me that there is not just one way to write in journalism. Each article that was written in a different way was able to retain their academic and journalistic integrity even they were not all written the same way. Each organization can have their own point of view on a certain topic and remain objective yet no two stories have to be the same.
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