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
I agree with you that it is an effective piece of news and helpful for travelers. Actually I know that the same scanner is used in the US (and maybe other countries)as well. I think it would be interesting to know what the US thinks!
ReplyDeleteHi Vicky, you might be interested in this article about a passenger feeling humiliated to go into the scanner that produce almost nude images. I think travellers, especially female ones, are mostly concerned about privacy. The US is upgrading their scanners so that every passenger will be avatar-like from the images.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.financialexpress.com/news/fullbody-scanner-at-us-airports-may-get-upgrades/679692/