Analysis of Chicagobreakingnews.com

Chicagobreakingnews.com is a very straight forward news website. Like its web address states, the site has all the breaking news across Chicago. The articles are listed chronologically with the most recent at the top. Multimedia of some sort is included in each article such as a news feed or a location map.

I really liked how the front page opened up to a map of the city of Chicago with pin points to where all the breaking stories were happening. In addition, maps are added to different stories as well so the reader knows the area where the event occurred. I thought that it was a very unique approach and really added to the articles. I am not native to Chicago so those maps really added to the story and helped me figure out where events were taking place.

I also really liked the format as well. It reminded me a lot of the format that TMZ and AOL use for their news stories. This particular format works really well when looking for up to date information pertaining to on-going stories. For example, this is a great news website to go to for up-to-date coverage on the Blagojevich impeachment trial which will begin soon. However, this would not be the best website to go to for your main source of news. It only covers stories in Chicago and I personally like national and international stories mixed in with my news.

However, it should be mentioned that Chicagobreakingnews.com does redeem itself in that it offers tons of links to other news websites that can provide a broader range of news stories. By clicking on “Local News Source” you are taken to a page with not only all the news sources available in Chicago (i.e. NBC, Chicago Herald, etc.), but it lists the top three stories from each news source. I found this to be incredibly helpful. I also really liked the links to the “Breaking News Video” and the “WGN Radio.” I like that they had these additional media options on top of the media offered with each article.

With the upcoming impeachment trial that Blagojevich has turned into a circus, I will definitely be visiting this site more often to stay up-to-date with the proceeding.