Pulled Quotes

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.