World News Showdown

By Nancy Stanley

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 — There are many different approaches to reporting on world news, as the following magazines demonstrate: 

Foreign Affairs appears to be primarily U.S. focused, as a large amount of its articles reflect back on relevance to the States. Many of the opening lines are bold (“Since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, Germans have lost trust in the United States” or “Few countries command as much attention as China”); this is most likely with aims to grab the attention of the readers. The website is very picture-heavy. 

Foreign Policy is a more descriptive read, with fewer absolutes than Foreign Affairs. This magazine takes more time to elaborate on the situations presented to explain problems and solutions, and also the reasoning behind the more predictive claims they make, if any. Most articles seem to be focused on the Western world, with some on Afghanistan or other Middle Eastern countries sprinkled in. This website is also picture-heavy.

The New York Times, a very well-read newspaper, has a diverse array of eye-grabbing topics and different mediums of media on its homepage. Its articles oftentimes begin with a focus on one interviewee, then zoom out to cover the story at large with many quotes incorporated. There is a mixture of traditional coverage (topics such as U.S. foreign policy or reporting on attacks) that is dispersed alongside the more entertainment-driven articles about pop culture and etcetera. The website has much more text than images, but includes videos.

Bloomberg seems more straightforward - each article starts with a fact of reality rather than a dramatic line. The bodies don’t make absolutes and often source where they are getting their information from. It’s more difficult to find articles not focused only on the West, and this webpage is more minimalistic than all the others. All of the topics are political.

Of all of the news sites, my favorite is Bloomberg, reason being that it is the simplest. Articles are more traditional in their way of reporting, with seemingly no “fluff” or unsupported speculation added. Although the topics are mostly Western-world focused, I trust their fewer articles on the rest of the world more so than the other newspapers - rather than being intentionally scandalous, eye-grabbing, or complicated, there is an attention to the main points that allows the source to feel decluttered and concentrated.