Knowledge Organization System #1

I chose to review The Hindu & . In contrasting these two, the obvious differences were pronounced fairly quickly. The Hindu is the considerably larger operation, delivering traditionally balanced news from India daily. It has all of the large-scale printing and research facilities one might expect from a news enterprise, employing well over a thousand people. According to the Audit Bureau of circulations, it’s the second most circulated English-language daily newspaper in India with approximately 1.6 million readers. So in general, it’s dealing with a lot more data. The Intercept on the other hand, is much smaller and more specific in its journalism, claiming: “Our longer-term mission is to provide aggressive and independent adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues, from secrecy, criminal and civil justice abuses and civil liberties violations to media conduct, societal inequality and all forms of financial and political corruption.” I didn’t necessarily have a reason for choosing these two particular publications and hadn’t been exposed to either prior to beginning the assignment. I’ll start by looking at each publication individually, beginning with The Intercept. I wasn’t aware that and founded the Intercept, but I was familiar with the documentary “Citizenfour”, which chronicles the Edward Snowden revelations from an amazingly intimate perspective. Despite seeing the film, I wasn’t aware of the Intercept’s existence. The film helped reveal the truth about what kinds of surveillance the average American citizen is subjected to by the NSA. The Intercept is owned by First Look Media (first launched in 2013); a news organization founded by philanthropist , who also founded eBay. Poitras has since left the editorial staff, but now produces documentaries for another firm owned by First Look. First Look operates as both a studio and digital media company. The only other publication on First Look’s website seems to be “The Nib”, which mainly features political cartoons, or essays in comic format. The Intercept itself employs somewhere around 42 people. This sort of independent media organization interests me, but according to an ex-reporter for The Intercept, First Look suffers from a lack of proper organization, where the managerial staff has been seen as incompetent in the past. When The Intercept’s homepage is first loaded, a jumbo image linking to the top story fills the entire screen, with the Headline in the bottom left corner and the author’s name right underneath the headline. The feature story is subject to change multiple times a day, making more of a “latest” story rather than a “top” story. On the top left of the image is the Intercept’s logo and, a side menu icon that expands when clicked. As I opened the menu, the top section presents a search bar and options to change languages from English to Portuguese. The actual menu items include “Glenn Greenwald”, “Unofficial sources”, “Robert Mackey”, “Intercepted podcast”, “Features”, “Documents”, and “About & Contacts”. At the bottom of the pop-out side menu appears to be information typically found in the footer: Social media widgets, copyright, terms of use, privacy, and a sitemap. So far, the site's minimalism in design feels effective and tasteful. It feels almost impossible to feel lost because the range of news is limited. I wanted to point out what a unique feature the “Documents” section was. Here, they publicly provide the raw documents that inform some of their stories, so readers can see the proof for themselves. This feature has been used since The Intercept’s conception, as they were one of the first sites to host Snowden’s leaked NSA documents. Scrolling down past the main story’s jumbo image, I’m presented with a link for federal employees to leak information to the Intercept. It’s a detailed guide on how to properly encrypt leaks to share if you see anything that you might consider to be illegal or immoral with the incoming administration’s handling of power. It also includes safety precautions at the bottom of the guide. Judging from The Intercept’s origins, this feature makes perfect sense. I would assume that this is where some the stories categorized under “Unofficial sources” are originated. As I scroll down, There are links to their top stories represented by large images and a headline to the right of them. The only other remaining and distinctive sections (aside from links to more stories) are for subscribing to their newsletter and a link to their podcast called “Intercepted” with . After that, it’s an endless scrolling through history of the site’s past feed, all dealing with issues I rarely see covered in mainstream media, such as surveillance, cyber security, and leaks from within the American government. Overall, they’re keeping it all quite simple as far as Information organization goes. I’ll take a look at a story with the headline: “Observable Reality 1, Trump White House 0” authored by Robert Mackey. Mackey is a senior writer for The Intercept and has had broad experience in American and International journalism, including The Times and The Lede, a breaking-news blog. Every biography page on The Intercept features an email to reach the author, as well as SecureDrop links (A method of sharing data anonymously) and PGP public keys for encrypted correspondence. Being a social media specialist, Mackey provides several embedded videos and complimentary tweets throughout his article. This story addresses Trump’s aide Kellyanne Conway suggesting that White House press secretary Sean Spicer presented “alternative facts” during his first press briefing. It appears Mackey’s goal is to reveal how ludicrous Conway and Spicer’s comments actually were, which wasn’t exactly difficult due to the overwhelming evidence proving his point. Now looking at the The Hindu: The Hindu is based in Chennai and started in 1878 as a weekly newspaper, but began publishing daily in 1889. It originated from a small politically charged group composed of 4 law students and 2 teachers. Their reason for initial publishing was allegedly to combat propaganda against a particular candidate running for judgeship for the Madras High Court. In 1995, they were the first Indian newspaper to start a website as another medium for delivering their news. As the page is loaded, one of the first things you will see is their humbly-sized logo that features an impressive crest showing the “Kamadhenu” on the left, which suggests auspiciousness; the Elephant on the right, which represents strength and power; and the lotus (purity and independence). In between the Kamadhenu and the elephant is a conch shell that is meant to represent “the voice of the people”. Below the crest is the today’s date and a link to “today’s paper”. After the Navigation bar, every section of the page has a very similar layout, more or less. Some Sections are bigger or smaller than others depending on the topic. Most of these topics have their own pages that can be reached from the navigation bar or navigation menu, so actually scrolling down this display feels a bit like scanning an actual newspaper. This is the second version of their website since it’s inception in ‘95. The site’s design was actually done by Mario Garcia Jr., of Garcia Media from Tampa, Florida, USA., and the web publishing system is from Escenic A/S, Norway. The implementation was done in-house. The Hindu is generally considered to be left-leaning, but it doesn’t necessarily show. While many of their top stories were international, it was very intriguing to scope out the current affairs of India. The headlines appear to be straightforward enough, but there are so many of them coming from different sources that it would be tough to generalize a typical “style” for The Hindu. I’m going to look at a top story for starters. I chose a story called “69% of political funds was from unknown sources” authored by Devesh K. Pandey. Pandey’s biographical page only provided an email to reach him. The caption reads: “Association for Democratic Reforms says the income of national parties from unknown sources increased by 313%”. This piece is analyzing national and region income for “political parties”. It’s a short, data-driven story that reads more like a financial report. Maybe not quite representative of The Hindu’s journalistic style. Another piece I looked at was entitled: “The voice of Modi’s foreign policy” by Suhasini Haidar. The caption reads “Jaishankar’s biggest success is the India-U.S. relationship that has gone from being one of a number of India’s strategic partnerships to its most important one”. This appears to highlight the importance to India of the U.S. withdrawing from the U.N., giving China a strategical opportunity. Therefore, they are extending term rules concerning India’s foreign secretary. Still delivered in a neutral tone overall. I’m realizing that there are several ways to navigate the Hindu and find many of the same stories in different ways. Although the mapping seems complicated, every article is properly organized with appropriate headings and sub-headings. I still have to wonder about the permutations of In conclusion, the sheer amount of information on The Hindu compared to The Intercept was outstanding. On the Intercept, I felt like could actually read all of their current stories in one sitting, while on The Hindu’s site, the stream of headlines felt endless and almost overwhelming. The reporting style between the two are vastly different, with The Intercept delivering their news with a more aggressive and dramatic tone, and The Hindu appearing more flat, or matter-of-fact about their delivery. The Hindu’s website is much more bloated, where The Intercept’s is minimal. With The Hindu having more news, they face a greater challenge in organizing and presenting it. That said, the information on The Hindu was still well-connected and cohesive. Both sites’ presentations were executed effectively. Appendix - The Hindu

1. Navigation bar Starting from the top, the Hindu’s navigation pane presents a thin row of icons representing it’s presence on other social media websites, as well as the option to subscribe to its newsletter. On the right-hand side of the same row, there’s a search bar. I can definitely appreciate that a search bar is one of the first things dealt with. Right below this pane is their humbly-sized logo that features an impressive crest that shows the “Kamadhenu” on the left, which suggests auspiciousness; the Elephant on the right, which represents strength and power; and the lotus (purity and independence) in between the two, presenting a conch shell that is meant to represent “the voice of the people”. Below the crest is the today’s date and a link to “today’s paper”. Rounding out the navigation pane is their categorization of topics. The first item in the list of generic terms is a menu button, which if clicked upon, presents a much more elaborate collection of topics. It features international and national news specific to Indian state and city. In the same menu it begins listing its columns and sub-columns- such as “opinion”, “sport”, “entertainment”, and “society”, where I can already see a few doubles listed from outside the pop-out menu on the navigation pane. The last bit after the list of topics features today’s trending words. Today (1/18/17), the trending words are three Indian cities: Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.

2. Top Stories The main story is the largest block featured (Not overwhelmingly large) in this next section, and is actually an American story not written by the Hindu, but rather by Alternative Press (AP). I think it just happens to be featured because it was declared “just in” 4 hours ago. This story is surrounded by smaller blocks, all featuring stories based in India. Right Below these “main story” squares is another section of the page dedicated to stories “just in”. Right below that is the “top picks” section. I don’t know who actually picked these, but I’m assuming it was the editorial staff. There are ten stories featured in this section, shown in a sliding selection box.

3. Opinion Here I found plenty of editorials, cartoons, “comment” stories, “lead” stories and interviews. Comment stories appear to be quick, focused articles on a particular subject, whereas lead stories are a little more in depth, with much of the subject matter being international; at least for today’s report. This section is accompanied by a little “trending” feed, with the approximate number of views next to a given story.

4. Columns This is a thin section, with just two stories today. Regular columnists are featured here. I appreciated that in this section, they included a link to a ‘terms of reference” page for their column called “Reader’s Editor”. Right below that link was another link directing you to their code of editorial values. I will probably refer to the values in their code for the essay.

5. Multimedia This section features various photo collections and videos from recent events. A few of the videos had to do with American presidential topics, and the others had to do with Indian pop-culture and science.

6. The Hindu Specials These links lead you to what they call “packages”, which appear to be collections of articles focused on a central theme. Some of them are ongoing series, others are more recent archival collections.

7. World / Local The next section is actually split up four sections: International, national, States and cities. Fairly straightforward depending on the story. This section is just an organizational scheme. There were also a few small ads for the Hindu here as well. 8. Sport Here, all of the stories seemed to be focusing on a particular sport that I couldn’t immediately identify. It almost looked like baseball, but there were small differences that made it unique. I found out that cricket was the name of the sport, which made me realize that I had never actually witnessed a cricket match. It was almost refreshing seeing an unfamiliar sport in the news.

9. Business Everything one might expect from the business section is present. Stories on trade deals, monetary rates and business deals between conglomerate companies.

10. Science / Technology The two subjects share their row, but have their own respective articles. Standard layout. For some reason, the images to these links show twitter & facebook icons when your cursor hovers over them, in case you want to share it. This feature isn’t present on any of the other images except for the main story (the first image link you see when the page loads).

11. Viewfinder This section wasn’t exactly a focused topic, but instead featured a few seemingly arbitrary links. The first was a picture of an American pedestrian walking by the white house. Next to that, a small section for it’s social media presences. Below that, the daily crossword and a link the Hindu’s archives. The archive link goes back approximately 50 years in the past of whatever the current date is. It’s relative though; Today’s date is January 19th, but the link was showing old stories from January 2nd to January 12th. I still think this is a pretty cool feature.

12.Entertainment / Life & Style / Society This is the last section for the Hindu to put everything else. This is almost the section that interests me most, since it seems to be a convenient glimpse of current, popular Indian culture. There was a small section to the side featuring stories of 2016-themed pieces, such as “Best of Kollywood in 2016” and “The Hindu cinema polls 2016”. Right below this section is one more “trending today” mini section.

13. Footer This is almost a repeat of the navigation bar, but simplified. It also includes (in traditional, small, gray text) organizational links such as “About us”, “Terms of use”, “Privacy Policy”, “Contacts”, “Archive” and “Subscribe”. Below those are links to their group sites, which seem to be their affiliates. Finally, they list an email address for feedback and their copyright mark. Appendix – The Intercept

To cover cyber privacy is a loaded task, especially considering the sheer technological advantage of institutions like the NSA & GCHQ (although to an extent, The Intercept relies on whistle-blowers from within these institutions). What’s worse, is that there’s no way for the average citizen to know if they’re being spied on, or if meta-data is being used against them. For these Agencies, there is absolutely no respect for privacy anymore. Critically considering these drastic measures quickly turns into a game of distrust and confusion that seems impossible to escape from. I was reminded of “Derrida” when he states that personal privacy is a humanistic right. Without it, we’re left with a bare reality where any discreet act can be viewed as a piece of data to be held against us and used to judge. From childhood we’re told about core American values, but the reality in recent years (especially now) shows aggressive intent by our government to violate these core values while sweeping their actions under the rug. It’s thanks to brave whistle-blowers and courageous journalism that the secretive actions of authoritative powers are brought to light. The intercept is a necessary force in journalism to “bring transparency and accountability to powerful governmental and corporate institutions” in an intrepid manner. I wholeheartedly appreciate the work of the independent journalists who can continue to press the envelope of investigative journalism with regard to the secrecies behind governing factors that can affect everyone.

Search results:

“Secrets” - provided 10 results, with oldest from 2014. The first result was an article with the headline: “Donald Trump and the Art of spinning Secrets Into Lies.” The caption says: “Classified Intelligence is an incredibly useful instrument for shaping public opinion. Trump’s misbehavior points to the deeper problem of how government can claim to serve the people while holding back so much information.” A sort summary for The Intercept’s theme.

“Russia” - provided 10 results. The first two are copies, with one in English and the other in Portuguese. The headline reads: “Russia Allows Edward Snowden to Remain Through 2020.” The caption says: “The NSA whistleblower’s stay in the country is set to continue after Russian authorities reportedly signed off on a new three-year visa.”

Works Cited

Diffie, Whitfield, and Susan Landau. Privacy On The Line : The Politics Of Wiretapping And Encryption. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1998. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 20 Jan. 2017.

Silverstein, Ken, "Where Journalism Goes to Die: Glenn Greenwald, Pierre Omidyar, Adnan Syed and my battles with First Look Media", Politico, February 27, 2015. Retrieved 2015-2-27. Web.

"Indian Readership Survey 2014" (PDF). Indian Readership Survey. Retrieved January 23rd, 2017.

"Submission of circulation figures for the audit period July - December 2015" (PDF). Audit Bureau of Circulations. Retrieved January 23rd, 2017.