Online business news web sites

How much do the online business news Web sites differ in what stories they lead with every morning? That’s something that I have been thinking about a lot in the past few days, so I decided this morning to conduct a test. Here is what the top four sites are leading with on the first day of November:

Bloomberg’s lead story is Qwest Communications agreeing to settle a $400 million lawsuit over accounting fraud. Its second story is a wrap-up of earnings from this morning, including Proctor & Gamble and Colgate. Its third story is Viacom’s third-quarter profits due to an advertising increase at VH1 and BET.

Marketwatch’s top story this morning focuses on the Dell earnings from last night. Dell issued a warning, so the implication this morning is that the stock market is going to take a dive as a result. The second story on its site is another forward-looking story about the Fed raising interest rates once again when the FOMC meets later today.

CNNMoney is leading with the Dell and the Fed stories as well this morning. It’s third story is a tale of how Overstock.com is waging a battle with short sellers.

TheStreet.com also is leading with the Fed story this morning, and it follows that with about a dozen individual company earnings stories.

I’m not sure what this tells me, if anything, other than at least on this morning the sites seem to be focused on looking ahead to the Fed news and how the market will open. Bloomberg is very focused on breaking news this morning, while the others seem to be trying to give more analysis to what lies ahead.