Full-body Airport Scanners - Ineffective

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/naked-airport-scanners-ineffective/story-e6frfq80-1225928906241

Image source: http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2010/01/naked-ambition-plans-for-airport-body-scanners-only-offensive-to-muslim-women/

This is a piece of hard news on news.com.au. It is about the controversy on airport full-body scanners. After six months of testing, the Italian government has decided to stop the use of full-body scanners in some of its airports because of the low-effectiveness. It is likely that the Italian government will drop the use of such scanners in other airports as well in the near future.

This is a good news story as it includes the “five W and one H rule”.

Who? The Italian government
What? Full-body scanners being dropped
Where? Italian airports
When? After the six-month test
Why? Ineffective and slow
How? Gradually, airport by airport

The questions were answered in the first two paragraphs of the story so that readers can quickly get all the information they need.

It also contained several news values. Firstly, it is timeliness. It happened very recently. Secondly, it has an impact. All travellers travelling by air in Italy have to go through those scanners, cancelling the scanners definitely makes the travel experience different. Lastly, when the scanner was first introduced, there was a debate on whether it should be used. Since the scanner shows a clear image of the person’s full body. There was a controversy on personal privacy and health concerns. People are naturally interested in reading stories that involve conflicts, tension and public debate.

Apart from that, it is a around 180-word article which makes it short and succinct, a good length for an online story. Together with the text, the author also posted a picture which comes along with the story to provide further information on what the scanned-imaged is like. It also makes the story more interesting to read.

There are also buttons on the top right hand corner of the article for readers to share it on some social networking websites, such as facebook and twitter, and to invite comments. These help in promoting the article to other internet users and generating a larger readership.

Sources:
1.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010301826.html
2. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aoG.YbbvnkzU&pos=11

Loyal Frequent Flyer Members: Watch Out!

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/when-frequent-flyers-get-taken-for-a-ride-20100916-15e4j.html

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/the-best-cards-to-earn-qantas-frequent-flyer-points-20090403-9n23.html

Most travellers are members of certain airline loyalty programme. It’s pretty obvious that they join the programme because they travel a lot and want to get reward for being frequent customers. But do members really benefit from the programmes?

Qantas’s recent announcement of its profits revealed a $328 million earning (before tax) from the frequent-flyer programme. Isn’t the frequent flyer programme supposed to be rewarding loyal customers, how come it is making such a large sum of money? So who were paying this huge amount? Of course THE CONSUMERS!

When customers are redeeming their tickets for travel, they do not actually get them for free, they end up paying via banking fees. Banks have buy points from airlines, but banks would not do it for nothing, so they simply transfer the fees back to customers by charging higher.

Businesses always use different marketing campaigns to make promotions and attract customers. Even when they say there’s a big discount, customers always have to be aware since in most cases, customers themselves are the ones who pay the cost in the end.

The story is written in the inverted pyramid style with most important news at the top, followed by extra details. At the end of the text, the author also provided some extra information on loyalty programmes, such as Virgin Blue allows other options, such as donation, for customers to spend their reward points.

Apart from allowing comments below the article, the author also provided her own email address so that readers can contact her. There is also a source below the article which is a good practice for online stories. People want to see the source materials.

The article covers several news values. It is timeliness since it reports something that has just recently happened. It also has an impact to the readers. According to a piece of news in The Age, here are more than 7 million members in the Qantas Frequent Flyer loyalty scheme. These 7 million people would be interested to know if the programme is, after all, not worth it.

Source:
1. https://shop.velocityrewards.com.au/Pages/SOR/AwardDetails.aspx?AwardId=23122
2. http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/qantas-frequent-flyer-bag-changes-20101006-167tq.html

Brand New Travel Concepts

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/travel-advice/abduction-tourism-new-travel-experience/story-e6frezor-1225894906075

Source: http://jasonjeffrey.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/tehran-accuses-us-in-case-of-missing-iranian-nuclear-scientist/

Travel abduction is one of the new travel concepts showcased at the Tourism Futures conference in Brisbane. Simulated kidnapping packages are now offered. People can pay to get themselves abducted without warning, bound, gagged and imprisoned for a duration of four to ten hours.

Ethan expressed his views on this new travel idea. He posted a question for readers to think why people would go for this ‘abundantly wrong’ kind of travel. He then suggested a number of alternative ‘experiential’ travel ideas. In the end, he concluded that holidays weren’t good enough if they were too ordinary. As Ethan described – ‘you can’t see great sights through a blindfold’.

Everyone likes extraordinary experiences but being kidnap just for fun? I think this is rather humiliating for the victims who actually suffered from abduction. I can’t believe people are actually paying for this game.

Ethan used a number of hypertexts in his article. Hypertext can help direct readers to another page for more detailed information regarding a specific topic. This allowed Ethan to keep his article nice and short without the need of explaining each and every term his used.

I also like the way Ethan started the article. His use of ‘LIKE you, I love new experiences’ connected the article with the readers. It also created a feeling that the writer was just the same type of person as the reader. Readers would want to read on to see how the article is related to them.

Sources:
1. http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/tourists-get-ready-for-simulated-kidnapping/story-e6frfqfr-1225888316956