It takes a certain reading to come to that conclusion. The idea is identical in both; one elaborates the other and the two are incredibly simple to harmonize. The first story is not a detailed account, but a brief overview of the creation story while the second elaborates key segments of the first. Remember; these were both supposedly written by the same person. I somehow doubt he/she was that dense as to just 'forget' about the first account when writing the second.
I also rather doubt that the writer, or any of the thousands upon thousands that heard the story over the next few thousand years, were too dull to notice what seemed like differences, too.
I agree with your analogy that the two stories are like two newspaper stories, both true but pointing out different facts. However, since starting a college course on genesis and looking at the texts much more in depth than when i was younger, a few things are tripping me up regarding whether they're both literally true.
Here's an example of a few things that came up in class that confused me.
In verse two of Chapter one of Genesis the Earth created by God is first described as being , and apparently covered with water , with dry land being created a bit later.
Gen 1:2 The Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. But a wind sent by God moved over the face of the waters.
As the six days of creation goes on, God shapes the world into an ever more familiar form, light, the sky, dry land and plants,the sun and moon(after light itself, interestingly), birds and fish, land animals and finally man. Everything seems to have built up to the creation of man, as if the world was created for the humans He creates.
When the account in chapter two starts, there is no vegetation.
Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the Earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the Earth, and there was not a man to till the soil.
In this chapter we seem to have skipped ahead a bit through the first few days, I suppose to around day three, when dry land and plants are created. In Gen 1 God asked the Earth to "grass grass"(or so the original Hebrew says) and the Earth "sent forth grass" as well as the other plants. Now in Gen 2 it appears man is needed to till the soil, or no plants will grow. In contrast to the watery void of the first account, we have a dry, desolate planet.
Man's purpose in Gen 2 seems to be as a means to an end, to till the Earth, rather than the end in itself, as in Gen 1. But when man is created, God instead puts him in the garden, and we jump straight to the Adam and Eve story.
At this point I would think that second account just skipped parts of the creation mentioned in Gen 1, but something odd comes up.In Gen 2:19 God creates the land animals and birds, after creating man. Suddenly rather than skipping bits it seems the order is changed.
Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the sky and brought them unto Man(Adam) to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Man called each living creature, that was the name thereof.
When none is found to be a suitable companion, God creates woman.
So, in the two accounts we seem to have several differences.
-The start of the world seems different(possibly just due to stories starting at different points of the creation).
-The first account seems to culminate in God's creating man, and in the second man seems to just be a means to an end. This might just be a difference in emphasis between the two accounts.
-The order is different. In Gen 1 plants, animals and birds are all created before man and woman, created on the same day. In Gen 2 Plants are created but not "sent forth" (their seed remains in the ground), then Adam is created, then the first plants grown in the Garden of Eden, then the animals, then women. If plants are created(and moreover, "sent forth" from the Earth rather than just planted in the ground) on day three, birds on day five, and animals first then both man and woman on day six, how can the account in Gen 2 also be literally correct?