Print Version V. Web Version

To my surprise, the print version of the San Jose Mercury News article "Age, time can't erase her past as a Nazi guard" and the web version has less differences than I expected.

The article is about an 84-year-old woman named Elfriede Lina Rinkel being deported out of the U.S. because of a recent unveiling of a life-long secret. It seems that Rinkel, widow of a German Jew and a known contributor to numerous Jewish charities, was a former Nazi guard at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany from 1944 to 1945. Although decades have passed with Rinkel living a peaceful life and being of no harm to anyone, law requires her to be tried in court and deported for her participation in Nazi atrocities. Rinkel, at the budding age of 18, opted to be a Nazi guard in the all women's concentration camp because it paid better than working in the factories. She also attests to never harming any prisoners during her year long employment. But, "is there a point when the horrors of the past can be forgiven?" asks the article's writers.

Reading both the print version and the web version allowed me to see that the structure and the actual article itself did not change, even if being disseminated through different formats. The article was exactly the same with the same content and sources. This surprised me because web versions of a news coverage is usually always shorter and condensed than its counterpart print versions.

However, I did run into some differences. For example, the newspaper provided a picture of Rinkel while there was no picture to be found of her in the web version. There were advertisments and links surrounding the web version while the print version did not have any accompanying it at all (at least none on the same page). Both had contact information available and provided links that would allow the audience to parttake in a discussion and vote but only the web version had a live link. (side note: 343 votes were made to answer the question if forgiveness can be made for someone's past atrocities; 66% voted "yes" and the other 34% voted "no")

For this particular article there weren't many relevant differences. The only real difference was its format and how it was being published. With that said and concluded, how would you vote? Would you be able to forgive someone for their past atrocities?