Emptywheel - Assignment Three

Emptywheel has a very clean, straightforward and easy-to-read design. While the design may draw readers in, the lack of original reporting and somewhat unprofessional responses continue to make it tough to take Marcy Wheeler's blog seriously.

Length - Wheeler's posts are limited to a few paragraphs, which make for an easy read. The information is also organized well, as she separates information provided from other sources from her own personal responses. Doing so makes the information a less intense, shorter read.

Scanability - Emptywheel could use some work in the scanability department. While she makes it easy to differentiate between cited material and her own remarks, (different color schemes) she doesn't make use of different fonts, styles, highlighting or bolding.

Chunking - Other than direct quotes, which are separated through the use of indenting and a different font color, much of the Emptywheel blog consists of chunking. I'm assuming Wheeler did this in order to keep the information together, although hyperlinks and other separators would be nice.

Headlines - Wheeler keeps things very straight-to-the-point, as her headlines present information about the news being offered, not so much the nature of her responses. Snarky headlines are used on occasion, but sparingly.

Copy Editing - Emptywheel is very clean, and makes good use of AP style. It's clear that Wheeler is trying to make her blog as professional as possible, though she does approach it more from an English or creative writing background, rather than a journalism background.

Inverted Pyramid - This doesn't apply to the blog, as most posts offer the news through other sources and direct quotes, and then her responses. It's set up more like a comments section than a story or article.

Page Titles - The page title remain the same, which offers consistency and makes for good, easy-to-remember branding.

Legibility - The content is legible, but a bit hard on the eyes as is uses mooted blues and browns. The text is in sans serif.

Most recent post - There isn't much to say about Wheeler's most recent post, which reads as follows:

"Harry Reid is in electoral trouble in Nevada, he has a very competent challenger looming on the GOP side and liberal and union activists will not be supporting him if he continues his failure to lead.”

I'm assuming the post was intended to quickly inform her readers of what's going on, with a more detailed post to follow. This is one example - the first I've seen - where Wheeler includes the news and her opinion in the same paragraph or sentence. Because of this, I'm guessing she was a bit pressed for time.