CNN.com is very good at covering breaking news, from the death of American inventor Steve Jobs to the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The website is sure to have multiple in-depth articles and videos covering the news in a very quick time frame.

A quick search for Gadhafi on CNN.com will bring up 23 pages of results that have been updated since the first reports of Gadhafi's capture and death--230 results in total. CNN.com did not just have articles that explained that facts of the situation. The results range from videos from CNN's television broadcast to reactions from Libyans shooting into the air to American pundits writing about what this means for Libya and the United States.

One video was of a high school teacher who had her second grade class write letters to Gadhafi in 1986. Gadhafi actually responded to the letters, although he spinned what the second-graders had written into pro-Gadhafi propaganda. The video showed the letters and had the teacher reflecting on what Gadhafi's death means to her.



CNN's Breaking News Twitter account was also constantly updating the news. The first tweet said that Gadhafi had been captured, followed by tweets that a "big fish" had been captured, but it was unconfirmed whether it was Gadhafi, to tweets that the leader had been killed, although this was followed by tweets that this could not be confirmed.

Digital Journalism II's midterm project was to take our slideshows from a few weeks ago and turn them into audio slideshows using Soundslides. Incorporating audio into the project offers a third insight into my subject, in addition to the photo slideshow and a short text section.

My patience with technology was definitely tested, working with unfamiliar software like SoundSlides and Audacity. But our professor and former reporter Herbert Lowe assures us that Soundslides is a news industry standard, so it was a necessary learning experience, and I feel much more comfortable working with Soundslides now.

The project follows Brian Timmreck, a sophomore in the Diederich College of Communication majoring in Broadcast and Electronic Communication. He is also a resident assistant in Marquette University's Mashuda Hall.

The most difficult part for me was getting the photos to correlate with the audio. Unlike many in my class who took photos of a person during a specific part of their day, such as a shift at a campus coffee shop or work as a desk receptionist, I followed Timmreck throughout the day. Many of the photos focused on a different aspect of his day. I ended up switching several photos to narrow the focus of the photo slideshow, allowing me to better incorporate my audio. However, rearranging the photos and choosing the audio that best matched them was definitely a struggle.

Last year, my freshman year of college, I came to Marquette University with no television. Usually I get my news from watching CNN or local news on TV, but with no TV in my dorm room, that stopped. Other than checking out the Chicago Tribune app during breakfast, I really had no regular source of news.

However, with this beat assignment, I have regularly been checking out CNN.com's website, and reading my classmates' blogs on their beat, helping me check out other news sources I might not otherwise have looked at.

What has impressed me most about CNN is the time and resources devotede to developing their news website. With a 24 hour news network, it would be possible to make the website an afterthought and simply throw news videos from television reports onto the website. And while CNN does provide many videos from its TV network, it also makes available plenty of web content such as written articles.

I was impressed with its coverage of the 9/11 10th anniversary and the death of Steve Jobs as well. CNN.com combined in-depth stories with photo slideshows, rememberance videos, and live blogging to cover these front page news stories.

Shocked is a word I heard a lot on Wednesday after the world found out Steve Jobs had died. This was one of those "where were you when you found out?" deaths for many people, especially those of the younger generations. Even ESPN.com had an article on its homepage announcing his death. CNN.com dedicated the rest of its night to not only the death of Steve Jobs, but the life and legacy of the Apple co-founder.

CNN.com quickly had a video posted on its website highlighting some of Jobs' bigger Apple product introductions, such as the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad2. The site also had several other videos and links to articles at the top of its homepage in a "Steve Jobs box" of sorts. The coverage of Jobs' death overshadowed the wall street protests that had previously headlined the homepage, and Sarah Palin's announcement that she will not be running for president in 2012, a piece of news that might otherwise have demanded the spotlight.

CNN.com also had a heavy focus on opinion pieces, all of them positive outlook on Jobs, such as this one on how he gave writers freedom of font.


Articles could be found under several CNN.com tabs as well, such as CNN Tech. CNNMoney had an article on "10 ways Steve Jobs has changed the world," highlighting some of Apple's best-selling products. CNN also highlighed the global impact of Jobs and his death, sharing an article on reactions in China.

When someone visists an article on Jobs, for now at least, on the right hand side next to the article, a long list of other articles on  Jobs can still be found, such as with this article on Jobs' true impact on the tech world.

While CNN.com's site dedicated most of its homepage to Steve Jobs on Wednesday night and Thursday, by Friday, he had all but disappeared. CNN.com had shifted its coverage of Jobs to its "Tech" tab. As late as Saturday, almost a dozen of the top articles on CNN.com/tech had to do with Jobs, and others with Apple and its new iPhone. The Tech page still had stories on Job's private funeral and cause of death Tuesday, six days after his death.

 CNN.com certainly dedicated resources and space to covering Jobs' death and reviewing his life and accomplishments. However, it was quickly replaced by other news, and an article that put a nice close to the coverage has yet to appear.

For a digital journalism class assignment, I had to photograph a person throughout the day to try and tell his story through photography. I chose my Resident Assistant, Brian Timmreck. I thought using an RA as my subject would be interesting because sometimes students simply look at the RA as the person who can get you in trouble. These photographs show that there are many different aspects of Timmreck's life and duties as an RA.

After completing a photography module on Poynter's NewsU website, I learned a lot of new information on the visual elements involved in photography and how to use them to create better photographs. Although I am still just a beginner, this project definitely helped me improve my skills.

I tried using perspective in many of my photographs, showing the duties of an RA that many residents might not normally see or pay attention to. I also took several personality portraits, trying to show the reader Brian's personality. I also used the "graphic" element in several of my photos.

In our digital journalism course last week, we discussed the elements of photography and how photography is used in media. So how does CNN.com employ photojournalism to help tell today's top stories?

The Wall Street protests are a subject that lends itself to many good photographs, such as the photo above, but the article covering the protests on CNN.com used had just that one picture, with no links to other pictures or articles that more heavily featured photographs. This as a missed opportunity for CNN.com. For something like protests, photographs and videos are a great way to help tell the story, especially in a timeline format.

Monday, the big story was Amanda Knox winning her appeal on murder charges. The article featured just one photograph at thet top of the page, which is standard for their articles. However, the live CNN.com blog covering the appeal featured multiple photographs showing scenes inside and outside the courtroom. Although some of the photgraphs were not very clear, it still aided in telling the story and showing what was going on.

For CNN.com's coverage of the 10th anniversary of September 11, it featured many stirring photos. But that was not unique to CNN, as most news organizations used photography, showing mourners on the day of the anniversary, phots of the memorial and news buildings, or taking us back ten years to the actual day. photography was a prominent use for story-telling that day, including on CNN.com.

But other than that, CNN relies more on video than photgraphy, which makes sense considering CNN.com has videos from the CNN television network at the ready than can be used in its coverage. However, with ABC News and Yahoo! recently teaming up deliver online-first content, it is more important for CNN to use unique coverage on its website and rely less on CNN news videos.