Evaluation of General Sources

After much deliberation, I finally decided to do Project 1 on nurse Nina Pham's lawsuit against the Texas hospital she worked at for not training her correctly in how to take care of an Ebola patient, which led to her contracting the disease.

The first source I have is a news clip from ABC News.

• URL: the URL for this source is abcnews.go.com. I've always been taught that a .com domain isn't a good enough source, but I have faith in the credibility of this because it's a direct news clip from ABC's website.

• Author: There isn't necessarily an author to the video, unless you count ABC, but the reporter behind the story is Cecilia Vega. She's an Emmy-winning reporter and has written other stories for ABC, "Nightline," and "20/20."

• Last Updated: the video was posted March 2, 2015, not even a year ago. I believe the information is definitely up-to-date and matches up with other information I've found about the case. The links on the page are pretty random; just any other ABC news clip that comes up. None of the links or videos are old, so again, I do think the information is up-to-date.

• Purpose: The purpose of the video is to give all the facts on what has happened to Nina Pham, her feelings on the subject and why she is suing, and how the hospital seems to be responding at that point. News tends to be biased depending on where you're hearing it, and this story seems to be slightly on Nina's side, just because of the kind of language they use and the way they present her case.

• Graphics: This source is a video, so it switches from pictures and videos of Nina, to pictures of the hospital she is suing and different texts. This is a convention of videos that makes the story entertaining and more than just the reporter reading it off.

• Position on Subject: Like I said before, the reporter does show a bias toward Nina's side of the case. I know the information is legitimate because it checks with other sources I've read and seen, so I think it's just her presentation and tone that makes it slightly biased. There isn't much to profit off of people believing the story, because you can still make your own judgements since all the info is there.

• Links: Again, it's a video so there isn't a way to link to anything else. There are no links in the description, nor does the reporter necessarily refer to anything except quotes from Nina and the hospital.

My other source is from an article off an online newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.

• URL: this source's URL is res.dallasnews.com. It's another .com domain, but again I believe its credible because it's a newspaper and I originally found the link through an article in Time, which is definitely a reputable online magazine.

• Author: The author of this article is Jennifer Emily, a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News.  She's a crime reporter and has her bachelor's in journalism from Indiana University in Bloomington.

• Last Updated: the article was posted February 28, 2015. It's a recent article because the lawsuit is fairly recent, so I do trust it's up-to-date-ness. The links on the page lead to other news on Nina, as well as other stories by the newspaper.

• Purpose: The purpose of the article is similar to the video; to inform the public on Nina's situation and why she feels she should sue. This story is more geared towards Nina's side, including many more quotes and pictures of her to sway the reader.

• Graphics: The article includes cute pictures of Nina with her really cute dog (again, to sway the reader), a few pictures of the hospital and a picture on the kinds of symptoms that come with Ebola. Other than the dog pictures, which are definitely persuasive, the rest seem informational.

• Position on Subject: This article is much more biased in that it supports Nina, This makes sense since it's a local newspaper in Dallas, Texas, the setting for the story. Being more biased and sentimental towards Nina may profit the newspaper because it has more of what people are interested in reading. 

• Links: There are links to more information on Nina and other stories, but nothing within the article.

The two sources I chose may have been leaning a certain way, but they're both different and present key information nonetheless.