Comparative Journalism Report: How I Came to Care about the Writer's Strike

So, since one of the A-List blogs that I read is Cinematical, a movie blog, I decided to do my mainstream vs. blog vs. independent reporting study on the Writer's Guild of America strike. The three sources of information I used were The New York Times, Cinematical, and indymedia.us, and I found some interesting comparisons and contrasts. For one thing, indymedia.us did not cover the writer's strike at all. That could be because it is already getting a lot of mainstream coverage, and they seem like the type of organization that covers stuff that no one else covers, but it seems odd simply because all of their other articles are all about standing up for individuals and pointing out protests of injustice around the country, so it seems like any strike would fall right in line with the type of information they cover. But, since they don't cover it, I can't very well comment on how they would have covered it, so my comparison is between the major newspaper and the topical blog.

Both the New York Times and Cinematical offer unique perspectives on the strike. The New York Times' set of articles on it is broad and deep, discussing both the meaningful and the trivial repercussions of the strike, talking to people within the industry about their opinions on the strike and their predictions for its outcome and ultimate effect on the industry, and printing opinion pieces from a variety of angles. However, in the end, it is just a series of well-written articles that inform, but don't really connect the reader to the strikers or their detractors. That is where a blog like Cinematical really shines. Not only do they have daily updates on the strike, but they are also not afraid to tell their readers how the strike affects them, as movie bloggers, or how the strike is affecting those involved - a fact that seems to be glossed over completely in the mainstream articles. Rather than talking about how the strike affects the movie companies, or the heads of the studios, they talk about how it is affecting the writers who are on strike - how they are turning to Craigslist for jobs or taking on freelance work to support themselves during the strike. The other thing that a blog lie Cinematical does that the New York Times doesn't is link to other blogs and sources of information about the strike, including the personal statements of writers, directors, and actors who are being affected by the strike. Through a blog, you can hear personal accounts of an emotionally-charged issue in the words of the people who are most affected by that issue, rather than through the objective third-party filter of the mainstream news.

However, I believe that in order for the full story to come out, we need both sides to make a whole. Through the mainstream news, we get the objective story and the broad coverage of every aspect of life that this strike affects. Then, from the blog, we receive the personal stories, the ways that this strike is affecting real people in their own words, which gives us a more emotionally charged and personal look at the issues, allowing us to feel a connection to a news story that may affect us only peripherally, but makes us care by showing us the human side of the story as well as the objective side.