Pulled Quotes

I saw a recent article on the Chicago Tribune website that featured an upcoming cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Apparently, this hasn’t been done before, but the magazine is publicly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama in his campaign for presidency. What works for this article is simple: Obama has the ‘young vote’, and a magazine that has historically showcased musical and entertainment talent is backing him up.

What strikes me as interesting is how through campaigning thus far, especially through the string of acts featured on Saturday Night Live, such elements of the campaigning from both Obama and Clinton, and their debatable issues, have been illustrated. With that said, a hip magazine taking a bold political stance is both newsworthy, and important. This is especially true if we recall upon the RS issue that came out several years ago in which current President Bush was featured on the cover in a cartoony, satirical fashion, alongside the headline: Worst President Ever. There is a certain level of respect in certain, established newspapers and magazines – RS, infamous for its strong opinions, calls this prediction of success “a new hope” if Obama wins. And I think a lot of people agree.

This week I decided to comment about not an actual article but more or less a press release that is reported on in a newspaper. Of course any story that relates to colleges catches my eye so I immediately was drawn to a story on the front page of the USAToday web-page on on March 6 that described a situation of a student having an explosive device in his dorm room at University of California.

This was not an actual full article written by a journalist, but it was written more like a press release. There is actually no byline and no attribution to one source at all. The report gives credit to The Sacramento Bee and KTXL-TV for all of the information probably because it is more of a local story than national.

I like this type of article because it is straight to the point and gives you the most important information needed. Even though it was short, it even included quotes from the police involved and a spokesman for the university. An update was included that was written after the first report published. As aforementioned I prefer these articles to long, drawn out ones. I get all the information I need in as little as 5 paragraphs and that is how I believe news, especially breaking news, should be reported.