Pulled Quotes

  I like Laura Kurtzman’s lede in her Associated Press story found in today’s USA Today, because it uses Bill Clinton’s words to express the legitimate view that Hillary’s ongoing battle for the democratic nomination will not hurt the outcome of the election, while at the same time letting you know that that is what he believes.   Another effective element of the story is her skilled use partial and full-sentence quotations. The author utilizes partial quotes where they fit the bill, such as in the first paragraph:  ”chill out” is language that, since it was used by the former president, is relevant to quote, while the rest of the paragraph logically uses paraphrasing to effectively lead into the story.  Meanwhile, full-sentence quotes from relevant sources dot the story strategically and sparsely.  

Here are some suggestions for the Associated Press author who wrote today’s story in USA Today covering the debate over Hillary Clinton’s continued campaigning for the democratic presidential nomination.   1) The lead, and, accordingly, perhaps even the title, should be changed to emphasize the fact that there is much debate over Hillary Clinton’s refusal to hand over the democratic nomination to Obama, instead of the fact that Obama has encouraged her to continue her fight.  This is because the entire story, save for the second and third paragraph, concentrate on the controversy–not Obama’s view of it.  Besides that Obama’s comments on the subject were brief, more devastating to the newsworthiness of them is that it would obviously be potentially negative for the candidate to publicly state that she should give up.  Further discrediting his apparent approval of Clinton’s effort, Obama is said to have urged a California superdelegate to hurry up and make up his mind for the good of the party in another Associated Press-written story in today’s USA Today.    2)  Obama’s comments on the U.S. job market in paragraph 10 appear too abruptly.  This could be fixed rather simply by preceding this paragraph with paragraph 13, including some transitory language, and, in effect, creating a nut graf for the new topic that dominates the rest of the story–campaign issues/random comments from political figures.    3)  The last four paragraphs should be pasted before said nut graf, as they are more relevant to the story’s initial topic than the information that begins at the current paragraph 10.   

I thought it would be appropriate this week to talk about a sports story since I have just completed one. This article from USAToday.com  describes the Chicago Cubs baseball game on March 30. The article is written much like any other sports coverage one but focuses a heavy deal on the fact that this is the Cub’s 100th year since winning a World Series because this is the most newsworthy.

The article follows the inverted pyramid rule quite nicely. The most important and most current information is in the first two paragraphs. Then as the article progresses there is a great deal of background of the “curse” that is supposedly haunting the Chicago Cubs. I thought the reporter did a good investigative job uncovering all of the theories that fans possess. He, the reporter, also provides a great deal of quotes from fans and from a Chicago Cub’s historian/expert. These quotes gave a lot of good information and authenticity to the piece.

Overall I thought the article was written well. I think the reporter could have given the gist of the story in a few less paragraphs, the overall story seemed quite daunting to read for a browsing reader.

Apparently, all the hype surrounding the safety and usefulness of social networking sites like Myspace.com isn’t always true.   In the case of Tiffany Rubin, her Myspace account allowed her to receive an important tip in the case of her missing son, who was abducted by his father and taken to South Korea.  Claire Trapasso wrote an article about Rubin’s story for the Associated Press.  Within the first few sentences, the reader can garner that Trapasso took a features-y approach in her writing.  While I’m certainly in favor of that approach, I was a little frustrated at how difficult the lead was to identify. 

Trapasso began her article by talking about Rubin’s hopelessness until she received the tip, but I think the real news is that (a) her son was found, and (b) he was found alive.  True, the tidbit about her Myspace account playing a role in the discovery is interesting and out of the ordinary, but it’s not as important as her son’s well-being.  Also, I can’t help but wonder why someone sent her a tip on Myspace instead of calling the police, a question that was never answered anywhere in the article. 

 While this article was certainly more interesting than the standard, cut-and-dry articles that stringently follow the inverted pyramid style, I still feel that this article buried the lead and left a few too many details out.

I guess I ran out of things to talk about, and this story caught my interest. The journalism is as refreshing as the story is. The News Journal’s story of a Stetson student’s high-heeled first step into the pageant world. The main focus of the article is Jessica Rafalowski, the student who managed to win Miss Florida and is on her way to compete in the Miss USA Pageant with out any prior pageant experience. Remarkable.

The article is pretty straight forward. Not really any lead though, except, it would’ve been really cool to see an article strictly about a girl who likes to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Specifically Donatello, he was my favorite. Another blog perhaps.

Aside from the deceptive lead, the article goes through a simple form, biographical in nature. Because of the otherwise dull nature of Rafalowskis life, a dull article followed. And following this soporific chain: A dull blog. Good night.

In Tuesday, March 25th issue of USA Today there was an article written on page 4D by Greg Toppo called “Size alone makes small classes better for kids”. I thought that this article was really well done and probably one of the best articles I have read so far for my blog entries. First, the reader was able to see that the writer did extensive research and did all the background necessary for this article. I also liked how the article included a chart of data that supported what was written in the article. The writer also provided readers with quotes from good sources. The sources quoted were people who were involved in this specific study and people who analyzed the findings of this study. I also really liked the angle that the writer took with this article. He talks about how teachers’ techniques haven’t changed with the downsizing of classes and therefore are not really part of the reason why smaller classes have been better for students learning. This is an interesting angle because usually the reader would automatically assume that teachers would change the style of their teaching with small class sizes and this in return would affect the reason why students do better in smaller classrooms. But since the writer made it clearly apparent that this isn’t true, the reader is more drawn into the article because they are shocked to hear something different than expected, and at the same time, the article becomes more newsworthy. Along with the angle taken in this article, the reader can see that the writer included the most important background information necessary to support his angle of the article. It is obvious that there was much research and background the writer had at hand to use, and part of the reason why I thought that this article was written well was because of the fact that the writer effectively selected and chose the most important background information and research to support the point being made. This is especially important in a news article because there is limit and space constraints.   However, I do think that there is one negative to this article. I think that the writer should have included quotes from the teachers who were studied in this experiment/study. Since the angle took involved the issue of teachers in this study, it would have been nice for them to be quoted. I personally would have liked to see the teachers’ opinions, for I think that using these sources would have been important for the angle that was taken in this article.  It may have not been necessary for quotes from teachers to be included, but I do think that it could have made the article even stronger than it already was.  In other words, even though I saw a small flaw in this article, I still think that this article was really well done and well written despite the small flaw I discovered. 

USA Today’s story “Feeding the obesity epidemic” gave me something to think about before eating my next meal. The story was intriguing and interesting, but used a bit of a scare tactic on the rapid weight gaining consumers of today’s society. Obesity is at an all time high, and the fact that struck out to me the most, and was the most effective, was  that obesity “will soon surpass tobacco as the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths,” Zinczenko wrote. One word: WOW!

This article incorporated effective facts and statistical data in regards to restaurants that have an astronimical number of calories in just one meal alone. I also believe the studies they referenced creative a more effective message to readers, and gave strong insight to our culture of obese Americans. People are getting too lazy to make their own healthy meals, which causes them to take the easy way out of eating at restaurants, especially fast food restaurants. Consequently, they are unaware of the caloric intake they are injesting, and what they don’t know can’t hurt them.

This article opened my eyes, and I fear for the growing rate of overweight citizens. Eating healthy should not be a once in a while occurence, it should be everyday. Eating unhealthy should be a once in a while thing. I worry for the health of others and the increased numbers of diabetes and cancer for our future.

An article found in USA Today discussed an issue regarding passenger rights in airports, however, let the reader down.  The lead was too detailed, there were spelling and grammatical errors, and some information was missing.

A writer loses some credibility when there are errors in their writing, so when I read this article, I was disappointed, especially with the lead which contained one of the errors.  The writer could have made this article very interesting, as it involved the rights of airplane passengers and a large portion of the U.S. population flies on a regular basis.

As for the missing information, the last line of the article listed a new person involved, without explaining who they were.  This lack of information also does not help the credibility of the writer and the news source.  Overall, I believe that this article could have been a good one if the errors and lack of information had been fixed.  This would also have given the writer more credibility and might have enticed the reader to read more within the publication.

Bush’ s recent speech regarding the gains in Iraq was a mediocre example at best of journalism writing, with some good points thrown in. 

 Jennifer Loven, an associated press writer, wrote an article on Bush’s recent speech in the Pentagon that began with a thirty-six word lead.  Furthermore, her article followed in the same vane droning on and on for two pages on information that could have been summarized in five paragraphs. 

In addition, her nut graf was very informational, but  subsequent paragraphs could have been used in a follow up story.   She had great usage of quotes, yet they seemed like they were copied from press releases. 

Furthermore, she provides the reader with lots of information and no sense of resolution.  However, I understand in present circumstances their is not really an opportunity to provide a resolution. 

I appreciate the amount of information that Loven presents the readers with but have found better examples of  journalistic writing. 

Her story does follow the inverted pyramid style format, yet she provides the reader with entirely too much background in the quickly and provides filler for the rest of the article. 

I felt that  Loven’s article could significantly improve if she simply had face-to-face interviews. 

Jay Reeves, an associated press writer, did an exemplary job of reporting the lead in a way that drew me in.  His story on the Wesley Acres Methodist retirement home, was well written news and gives readers all the information they need in the lead and the second paragraph.

Furthermore, Reeves’ use of quotes provides the voices of the people involved instead of a monotone summary which I sometimes find myself falling into as I make an effort at straight news reporting. 

Reeves’ article is a great example of giving  the straight news and using the people to tell the story through quotes.  In addition, Reeves also has a great example of how to use said before a quote in the end of a sentence.  I often I find myself struggling to re-word sentences because of the unspoken said format. 

Reeves, also did an excellent job of representing both sides of the issue.  He presented the readers with  the quotes from the person who filed the complaint against the retirement center, and then he provided readers with the comments from the retirement center. 

Lastly, Reeves was able to provide more background at the end of the story which provided readers with a through understand of the issue and the possible solutions. 

An overhead shot of the building can be found at the link -> Swastikas and the Elderly on the www.satellite-sightseer.com home website. 

This story appeared on CNN.com called ” From $70K to food bank, one family’s struggle.”  It was set up in a different way from most stories we have looked at in class and that I have seen so far.  The author tries to frame the story as a human insterest sotry by centering it around this one family with an anecdotal lead and conclusion, but the real story is hidden between those. 

 The 7th paragraph down seems to be working as a nutgraph and brings up the real reason why this story is newsworthy today–increasingly severe economic problems in the Middle-class.  I think adding this human interest aspect to the story helps make it more interesting to the reader.  And if anyone else has been looking at this like I have since I graduate soon and will have to meet this problem head-on myself, you will notice that this story also makes the problem a little easier to understand because it using this one woman’s story as a scary example of how fast and hard economic changes can happen.

 My one biggest criticism to this piece, though, is that it does wait so long to slip the larger picture in.  I feel like it could have been briefly mentioned in the lead by saying something like “Patricia Guerrero is facing a problem far too many other Americans are also facing.  She was laid off in February from a $70K job and within weeks was forced to go to a food bank.”

This is probably not the best written lead in the world, but I just want you to see what I mean.

Plus, I totally did not know the phrase was “making ends meet,” instead of “making ends meat.”  I will have to investigate and see where that came from.

In a Daytona Beach News Journal article titled, Man falls to death from hotel balcony; a story is told of a 31-year-old Ocala man who accidentally fell six stories. The article is effective in addressing the who, what, where, and when, but they why is amiss. The why is actually the most interesting aspect of this story other than the fact that he fell without any explanation. Another crucial aspect of this story is the fact that the presence of drugs and or alcohol has not been confirmed or denied. This kind of incident is prevalent in drunken spring breakers, yet this 31-year-old man has fallen to the same end. The time of the accident, almost 3 a.m, suggests that some time of mind-altering substance was used. While this was most likely a breaking news story and was put together quickly, the article could be improved drastically if some interviews were conducted. Obviously whomever he was with while he was sitting on the balcony could shed some light on the situation. Also, hotel management stated that it was “not a spring break hotel.” Does that mean that falling off balconies is some degree worse or better if it isn’t drunken college students? If the fact that it “isn’t a spring break hotel” means that there aren’t drunken people roaming around, then the story is even more bizarre. It seems hard to believe that there is no more information to this story.

The recent article World Food Program calls for donations as U.S. aid drops has helped intensify my respect for journalism (or at least for USA Today.) The article was far from the best I have ever read but it did, however, live up to my expectations of clean-cut, to the point, relevant news. Lately, as my knowledge of journalistic principles has expanded, I have found myself unsatisfied after reading many news stories. I am often left with obvious questions I felt should have been answered and I question the inclusion of irrelevant information. After reading this article, though, I felt satisfied and, perhaps more importantly, knowledgeable about the topic. The reporter included vital statistics that added to the overall understanding of the recent food donation decreases without overwhelming readers with extraneous numbers. Throughout the article she not only introduced some of the issues facing aid organizations, but explained their effects and possible future solutions. Through this article the author provided readers with an unbiased look at an important issue that will soon gain more widespread global attention. Reading this article really made me wish that all news could be this straightforward.

Paul Prudhomme was apparently hit by a bullet last Tuesday according to the USA Today article “Chef Paul Prudhomme grazzed by a bullet.”  The shot which apparently was fired from a “1 1/2 mile radius” of the golf course Prudomme was at, presumably was not intended to hurt the top chef.

However, little is known of where the bullet came from, who fired it and what police are doing to investigate the situation further. The article also fails to mention how the chef felt after receiving the unexpected blow. Although Prudhomme apparently did not need any medical attention, as the bullet merely cut his skin and made a hole in his cooking attire, one must assume the bullet was meant for an alternative target.

The article does state that the chef just continued cooking with little care of what had just happened. The event is one that seems somewhat puzzling and rather random. One lesson learned from this is be careful when cooking outdoors who knows what might happen!

A USA Today article is about a glacier the size of Connecticut breaking away.  The lead ends with this quote, “putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk”, however that is not followed at all in the story. 

I would like to know the risk, to glaciers and to me.  The first article that was released barely held any information.  Now, the articles are more in depth.  Is this going to cause a ripple effect that eventually causes a tidal wave?  Are a lot of animals going to die? 

The first article did not answer my tidal wave question, it was only about 5 paragraphs.  However, the USA Today article did state that their was no threat to water levels.  I think the lead should have focused on the photos that we were able to take and how long this glacier has been breaking away, after all that is what the story focuses on. 

The lead is somewhat sensational, and I guess supposed to worry people.  However, the story does not talk about that at all.  This is the problem I have with writing.  The writer needs to find out what the actual news is and stick with it.