Everyday when I check my email, I see the Yahoo homepage. Sometimes I will click through the news and see if there are any interesting headlines. Ever since I've been in Europe, Yahoo has given me the option of seeing the USA Yahoo page or the UK version.
The news stories that are shown are incredibly different. Only one time have I even seen articles that were on the same piece of news and that was about the death of Stallone's son. After the initial article that broke the news, the USA version and the UK versions have drastically different takes. The USA version has the headline "Stallone's bond with Son" while the UK version says "Stallone's son 'dead for days'?". The UK article actually talks about the details of the case while the USA article only talks about the relationship between Stallone and his son, only mentioning the actual death in the last sentence.
Another interesting thing was that the UK version had an article saying "Mass evacuation in Japan floods". As soon as I saw that headline I went back to my normal Yahoo homepage to see if I had missed an article. No. Not a single article in the 50 shown on the homepage even mentioned flooding in Japan. The Yahoo homepage is obviously tailored to suit the fancy of the American public - it rarely mentions worldwide news. The UK homepage does not seem to have that filter.
Huh! That is really interesting. I've noticed in general too that Brits don't like to beat around the bush. It seems that while Americans tiptoe around potentially touchy scenarios, Brits in the news world prefer to face hardships head on. I think this manifests itself even with the way British people act. For instance, this weekend some friends and I passed some overly dressed up women outside a bar who were celebrating one of the women's divorce signing from earlier that day. I'm sure there is an ebb and flow of brashness that goes between the people and the media here.
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