Oprah House in Sydney as Winfrey comes to Australia

The article is The Daily Telegraph’s report about the US talkshow host Oprah Winfrey’s plan to bring her final season of her program to Australia later this year. The piece has a creative pun in the headline which grabs the reader’s attention, and it begins with a description of how many tickets are available and how they will be distributed, which is the first thing fans of her show here would be interested in.

The article then goes on to describe details of the announcement, as well as the possible Australian celebrities who will be featured. The Daily Telegraph has also obtained show plans that reveals Oprah’s travel plans for her Australin trip, as well as how the Opera House episode will be staged. The article concludes with a mention that Tourism Minister Jodi McKay is expected to make an announcement, as well as a retrospective look on Oprah’s last Australian-themed event to promote the film Australia.

The story content is effective in communicating all the details from Oprah’s announcement to the plans of her trip here. There is much quoting and paraphrasing instead of direct interviews to seek opinions, but the article has managed to cover a lot of ‘story ground’ regardless.

As an online story, it is effective to an extent. It is posted under the ‘Sydney Confidential’ gossip column, with a single main image. It would be better if there were more images posted in a looping slideshow. Under the ‘Video’ tab, there is a video report on the same story from an external news organization, but it’s understandable since the Daily Telegraph specializes in the print medium and not broadcast. Above the image is a ‘Recommend’ button for Facebook, which encourages people to share the story with others. There is also a ‘Retweet’ button that serves the same purpose on Twitter, a microblogging site. There is a ‘Related Coverage’ sidebar that is non-intrusive.

Strangely, there’s two hyperlinks, “Opinion from The Punch: A thank-you note from Tourism Australia” and “Join our Oprah Winfrey coming to Australia Facebook page” that are inserted in the middle of the main story. This is very distracting and breaks the ‘reader flow’. A better design would be to isolate it under the ‘Related Coverage’ sidebar, or at the end of the article as a follow-up.

At the bottom are the comments submitted by readers, with an unrestricted post entry box that offers to remember your details and send an email notification once the comment is published. There are relatively few ads, and the coordinated purple and blue colour scheme gives it a slick and clean aesthetic.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/oprah-house-in-sydney-as-winfrey-comes-to-australia/story-e6frewz0-1225921438029