Nothing Special

Image copyright to the author.

I was curious to see the breadth of stories on Latin American current events on the websites of four UK news outlets: the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. I was unable to find a dedicated section of the Sky News website. En primer lugar, I was rather disappointed by the efforts of the Independent. They offer only eleven stories in total on the front page of their ‘Americas’ section—and when I checked, nine of those concerned the United States of America. It’s not as though the page suffers from a lack of space! There is enough for twice as many stories.

The population of Latin America dwarfs that of the United States: 590 million in 2010. It’s a shame the Independent isn’t able to provide more information about what goes on there in an accessible way: one has to click through to other pages to access more stories (perhaps this is good for the advertisers). Even the second page is dominated by the United States, including a story about the ‘interior design tastes’ of the New York mayor.

The Telegraph’s offering is, functionally, an improvement over the Independent’s: they offer 25 stories all on one page, though these go back over two weeks, while the Indy’s eleven are all from today. I would question the relevance of Jonathan Dimbleby: ‘I’ve done cocaine’, but the page wins points for being dedicated to Latin America, instead of lumping in the U.S. and Canada.

The Guardian’s ‘Americas’ page is visually attractive, boasting a greater number of accessible stories than the Independent’s, and which are more regularly updated than the Telegraph’s. One has the option of filtering by country, all of which are available in a drop-down menu which doesn’t need to be drop-down. Something not featured on the other websites is a subscription button for the page’s RSS feed, a rather useful addition. North and South America share the same page, though the United States does not intrude because it has its own page in World News. Make of that what you will.

Of the four, the BBC’s Latin America page is the most visually pleasing (assuming that you are not viewing the recent beta update). The Beeb’s resources allow it to provide over twenty stories on one page covering a few more subjects than the other websites, including such niche interests as Colombian wheelchair rugby. A useful non-news feature of the BBC page is the availability of country profiles which the organisation has created, presumably to meet its brief to inform and educate. RSS feeds are on offer, although a dedicated Latin American feed is not.

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The Independent is the loser here, by a wide margin. An ugly and clunky website and lack of regional variety doom it to irrelevance: all the other pages provide more news from Latin American countries, and the Indy‘s coverage, although up-to-date, cannot compete. The BBC maintains the best page, in my opinion, followed by the Guardian (for ease of use and more recent stories), and the Telegraph. For stories you may not find on any of these sites I recommend IPS News’ Latin America page which is excellent, bordering on comprehensive.