Local vs. National?

So for my blog I decided to see how a local news site would stand up to a national news website, let's say Fox News' site. So for my local news I decided I'd go with Fox 2 News' site, which is the local affiliate of Fox in my hometown of St. Louis (cheap plug). Before I compared the two I thought the sites would be similar, with Fox two being an affiliate of Fox. I found out that I was mistaken, when I looked at both sites.

First, we have my local station Fox 2. When you first open the page your eyes are drawn to the picture of the top news story on the left side of the page. Underneath that story summary are other selections for top news stories. As you scroll down you'll find more news stories and links that have to do with St. Louis and some global news. At the top of the page is a number of buttons; each of which will take you to a different type of news (weather, entertainment, etc). Along with all this there are some adds on the bottom of the page and on the right side. While the site is laid out very nicely, it feels a bit cluttered, as if they we're trying to cram a much news as they could on one page. 

Now we move on to Fox News' site. This one really surprised me. Now I'm no fan of Fox News, and visiting the site didn't help much. The first thing you see is, again, the picture of the main story, dead center of the site. To the left is a number of links to the other stories. However, they are just that, links. There are no pictures, no flashy icons, just a link to the story. As I scrolled down I found that the layout wasn't bad. It had different sections for all the different kinds of news as you might expect. It didn't help the main problem of the whole site to me though, that being that the website was terrible boring.

Overall I actually liked my local news site a lot better than the national. It was more colorful and was laid out a bit better despite being cluttered. In the end, I think I'd go to the local website than the national for my news.