While CNN.com contains plenty of tradional news articles and videos keeping people up to date on the day's breaking news and hot topics, the website also provides blog and podcasts to entertain and inform its viewers.

CNN.com does not give its blogs and podcasts sections any prominent display on the homepage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find links to the blogs and podcasts pages. For newcomers to podcasting, the podcast page offers a small introduction to what it is and how it works.

People can listen to various content with CNN's podcasts, from a political notebook podcast, to a simple news updates podcast, and even a CNN Student News podcast that focuses on middle and highschool classrooms. Unfortunately, I cannot provide links to these podcasts, as they can only be accessed directly from CNN.com's podcast center.
CNN.com also offers dozens of blogs, with topics ranging for sports to food to Anderson Cooper. CNN's Viewer Communications Management Team has even created a blog, CNN.com Behind the Scenes, which is described as a blog for the viewers and all about the viewers.

While CNN.com does not provide any sports content (rather, it sends viewers to Sports Illustrated's website, SI.com), it does have a blog on sports, CNN World Sport. Rather than focusing on scores and updates, it delves into  other issues and aspects in sports, such as racism and a blog on the quality of this year's MLB postseason.

I think that CNN.com has done a good job delving into the worlds of blogging and podcasting, offering truly unique content that is a mix of information and entertainment. However, CNN.com needs to do a much better job highlighting these aspects of their website.

I am incredibly excited to share this project with all of you. As our latest assignment for my Digital Journalism class, we teamed up with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service to produce two slideshows focusing on charitable organization in the Milwaukee area. The first one has just been completed, and can be found here.

This slideshow is about the Children's Outing Association, which has several locations throughout Milwaukee and is ranked as one of the top charities in Wisconsin and the nation. The project focuses on COA's "Home Instruction for  Parents of Preschool Youngsters" program (HIPPY), and a parent, Monique Strickland, who is participating in the program with her five-year-old daughter Madison.

My partner, Liz McGovern, and I worked very hard on this project. We both took pictures, and I was responsible with asking follow-up questions during the interview. During the editing, I focused primarily on audio while Liz worked on the photos, and we worked side by side putting the finishing touches on our slides.

I will definitely use this first project as a learning experience to make our next slideshow, which will be coming in several weeks, even better.

With so many primary debates taking place for the 2012 republican presidential nomination, I thought this would be a good time to explore the CNN.com political tab.

The page is a bit scrambled, with so much information, but it is easy enough to navigate. There are different sections for Congress, the White House, and news buzz (currently following Chelsea Clinton's new job as NBC political reporter).

CNN.com has also already created a 2012 election center that can be accessed from the politics tab. The election center gives updates on all of the recent debates and developments, such as the latest poll results, which most recently saw a surge for New Gingrich's supporters.

The politics tab also contains plenty of opinion pieces from CNN.com writers, such as this article from David Frum on why the Euro crisis should be a concern in American politics. If you want local politics, CNN.com has you covered as well, although the website thought I was in West Virginia when I was in Milwaukee, so I was getting updates from towns I've never heard of.

If you want local politics, CNN.com has you covered as well, although the website thought I was in West Virginia when I was in Milwaukee, so I was getting updates from towns I've never heard of.

After CBS announced the death of "60 minutes" essayist Andy Rooney, CNN.com put together an obituary package that included articles on his career and impact as a writer, and videos that had former coworkers and bosses sharing their insights on Rooney.

The four-time Emmy Award winner was famed for his grouchiness, and CNN.com paid homage to that, with an article full of some of Rooney's best rants and video slideshow borrowed from Time that featured 10 of Rooney's most memorable segments.

CNN.com's coverage of Rooney's death was well-rounded, although I found it odd that the website had two videos that were practically word for word the same audio, one narrated by Gary Tuchman and one by Karen Caifa.

The death of Rooney was the top subject on CNN.com's "Newspulse", which shows the most popular stories at the moment. By Saturday night, the death of Rooney had been replaced on CNN.com's homepage by news of LSU's defeat over Alabama in college football. I wonder if Rooney would have had something to say about that...