So I was looking through the Diamondback (today) and saw a front page story about the Same Sex Marriage Bill being argued in the Maryland House of Delegates right now! The story started with a brief anecdote about a lesbian couple and how in love they were with eachother before the article went into detail about the bill and what would happen if it were passed and signed by Gov. O’Malley.

Wanting to know more about this hot issue, I Google searched “Maryland Same Sex Marriage” and an online article from the Washington Post popped up. It was about the same thing as the Diamondback article-the same sex debates. The main difference was it was so cold and inpersonal.

Seen below is a portion of the Post’s article about the Same Sex Marriage bill. All of the information in it is the same as the print story I found in the Diamondback. It’s just presented so differently.

I notice that online articles are straight to the facts. People who look up information online want their facts and they want it fast. They don’t have time to look at pictures or read cute little starter stories about an individual couple. They just want the who, what, when, where, and why and that’s what the Washington Post supplies.

The good thing about the online format is that there are links in an online article so that you can do further research on the topic presented in the article. That’s somrthing that you won’t find in a print version (obviously). But it is lacking the make-me-wanna-read-it factor that a print article has. The online version just doesn’t grab you as much as cute couple staring up at you from the front page of the Diamondback.