Pulled Quotes

The article “Girl in polygamist sect was beaten” at news.yahoo.com is written in good old-fashioned inverted pyramid style and is actually newsworthy, compared to my last post about the jailed newlyweds.

Maybe it depends on where you are getting your news, but this is my first time checking out Yahoo news and I like the way this article is written. Each proceeding paragraph is like a more detailed, specific version of the first paragraph/ lead, which is the appropriate way of writing news stories, as we learned in class.

The short article answers the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the occurrence, most of which are answered in the lead. The only problem with the lead is that it start off, “Court documents…,” which is not important, and ends with the most important piece of information, the main topic of the article, “her husband beat her.” The fact that the young girl was being abused should have been mentioned first.

As the story progresses, the writer describes how the girl was beaten, getting into more detail about this main point of the article. This concise article was clear and in no way confusing, exactly how a news article should be.

“Bride, groom spend wedding night in jail” on msnbc.com is a concise, factual story that stays objective despite some definite opinions that the writer could have about whether it was fair to arrest a bride and groom on their wedding night.

I have two problems with this story, however. For one, it’s not exactly newsworthy. Sure it’s entertaining, but it doesn’t really have impact or importance. Second, the story doesn’t follow the inverted pyramid. General and specific facts are all over the place. The lead says that two newlyweds had an “unforgettable night,” but it doesn’t get to the point. What was unforgettable about it? That’s the whole point of the story. For such a short article, the lead should be much clearer. In this five paragraph story, the events progress chronologically rather than from general to specific.

After watching “All the President’s Men” in class, where every article Woodward and Bernstein typed started off with a concise lead and contained no fluff, leads like “A weekend wedding turned into an unforgettable first night for these two newlyweds” just don’t cut it.

The popular television series “Project Runway” will now be played on the Lifetime network according to USA Today article “NBC Files suit over “Project Runway” deal.”  Although NBC is apparently not happy about the deal, they have publicly announced their frustration by filling a law suit, however the article does not state what the law suit states exactly.

Currently all we know is NBC were not given an chance to counteroffer Lifetime and the article also fails to say how much the show was bought out for. The show has been very popular for NBC and it is understandable that they would not want to loose it yet we do not know if there will be a replacement for it or if NBC will continue to fight for the show.

While NBC claims that the deal was a “sham” they do not state why this is the case and rather they infer that the business was done very underhanded. Although it is currently unknown as to why NBC was no longer allowed to bid on their own show what can be sure is that you will now have to tune into Lifetime if you want to see your beloved “Project Runway” again!

I was not going to write another post tonight, but I saw this and thought it was relevant to our class, since we just finished watching All the President’s Men which dealt with the Washington Post. 

I am guessing this would be circular or the kabob.  It is hard to tell.  The article begins with a great lead describing how many Pulitzers won. It then goes on to describe each one. 

The article got off topic discussing in the middle, the troubles newspapers are having now due to economic issues.  Then it starts back into who won what. 

Next the article turns full circle to the 6 prizes one and what each story was written about.  It is pretty interesting learning that their biggest stories were investigative, which we were just learning and watching. 

In the end the writer gives  a bit of background about Pulitzer prizes. I am just not sure what kind of structure this is.  It is all over the place and random even though it does get the point across.

We know the hell they go through to get these stories, so they definitely deserve the glory!

In Thursday’s USA Today there was an article written by Gary Strauss on page 6D called “Berkley set to ‘Step It Up’ on Bravo.” I had a couple problems with this article. One, I felt that the article seemed like it was going to talk about the premiere of the new television show “Step It Up” but instead it seemed to talk about Elizabeth Berkley, the host. And while the lead was good in the sense that since the article is about Elizabeth Berkley, Strauss mentioned her name in the lead, showing the prominence of the article, however, the lead didn’t seem to set up the rest of the article. So, again the reader thinks (like I did) that the article is going to be about the television show more than just about the career of Elizabeth Berkley, and this is all because of the lead. Also, Strauss seemed to mention the fact that Elizabeth Berkley was trying to redeem herself after “Showgirls” but Strauss failed to mention why the film damaged her career. It would have been really interesting to know, in my opinion. Another issue I had was, why was the article written about her at all? I personally do not think that she is essentially a newsworthy topic, I actually think that the premiere of this television show she is hosting is more newsworthy than her. Also the article didn’t seem to follow the inverted pyramid style. Parts of the article like the last paragraph seemed like unnecessary information compared to the rest of the information in the article.

 After seeing the movie 21 I was interested in looking at the critics view of the film.  According to page 133 in Inside Reporting, Claudia Puig does a fairly good job of critiquing the story but with some errors. 

She does rehash the movie.  The entire article tells the entire movies plot and in a way has spoilers toward the end.  I would not want to read the review before seeing the movie because it gives too much away.

She did use several unnecessary adjectives such as repetitive and implausible, which she doesn’t back up.  She does use overlong but goes into why she believes that toward the end of the article. 

She uses “of course” several times throughout the story.  Of course he does this, of course we know he will do this…Actually, I did not know about the movie, so she does not need to say of course.  Maybe she knows about the movie, but I think its unfair to use that phrase.  It also becomes repetitive. 

She definitely lets her opinion show and keeps it pretty simple.  There are a few flowery sentences, but then again, this isn’t front page strict journalism.  After doing a bit of searching on Google I learned that Puig isn’t a one time writer. She has 71 pages worth of critiques on movies on the USA Today web page.  Also, her name brings up a plethora of results on Google, some saying what a terrible opinion she has.

Overall, she did her job.  She gave her critique on what she thought was  a terrible film.  I just wish she would have kept the ending to herself.  I wonder if she just thought the math was too complicated, because I loved the movie.

Maybe I have been under a rock but I have not been following the news of the riots surrounding the carrying of the Olympic torch.  Today, I happened to see the headline “Protesters disrupt Olympic flame relay in Paris“.  I was curious, so I opened it. 

I was shocked to see how much hell the people carrying the torch have gone through. I have just been out of touch with this news, so as I read on I was wondering, “Why the drama?” 

I looked toward the end of the story for more background, but there was barely any.  It just said that protestors were rioting against China’s relationship with Tibet.  Has this been an ongoing issue?  What else is the issue? 

It makes me feel somewhat ignorant not knowing these important events that are taking place, so I look toward the media to tell me more.  Should this article tell me more?  Should it also go into more background or did it do enough?  How much background, if any, should articles include? 

Sometimes a story may have several different versions and a person will not read every one.  Like in this case, the first story I read did not give me all of the background information I needed.  However, I am sure if I look through the other articles I will find out more. 

Another example is in my hometown newspaper about a conman who ravaged people in Sweetwater.  One new article discusses how there has been a third arrest in the case.  The article does not give any background, so if a reader saw this for the first time, and had been under a rock they would be completely lost.  

It gave the important names but failed to discuss what and why and the past of the situation.  However, it does give a tip to read a related article that has more about the situation.  I guess that is how a writer can save space, stay in the word limit, without giving all the history of a story.

I just don’t understand how you know when to put in background and when not to include it.

I am also going to comment on an article in the April 3 edition of the Stetson Reporter.  The article, Stetson’s Needed Community Forum, was about the “discussion” that occured in February and in March.  It is now April.  I do not believe that this article is relevant or newsworthy.  It just seemed like something to take up space. 

The entire first paragraph is a recap of the events that have taken place on campus, well the suicides.  So, you would think that would be what the entire article is about.  Then it goes into how poorly Stetson handled these situations.  Haven’t we already seen these issues in the Reporter before?

It was a rehash of issues we have read over and over.  Finally, in the 5th paragraph, Julie Antos, discusses the paper wall.  Now, I believe the news should have been how many people wrote on the wall and how few showed up to the discussion.  Was it “needed” as the headline portrays?

The article had one quote from the discussion in Feb, but it was about the point of the wall.  What in the world is the news in this story?  Antos does not discuss what went on at the “needed” forum.  I just feel like something more newsworthy could have been covered in the Reporter.