The Pope Visits
I took a look at the atricle from the New York Times called “Pope Begins 3-Day Visit to New York.” This article had a very informative intro that summarized the pope’s planned activities for his visit, and then went into a discussion of how he has been reaching out to other religions, American Catholic schools, and victims of sexual-abuse at the hands of priests.
However, since the title and lead support a story that will summarize his visit and activities one would expect the story to do that. But it does not. Instead the story focuses on a couple of his current activities, and it seemed that the most emphasis was placed on his meeting with the victims of sexual-abuse. This is the most heated topic, but the reader is expecting a summary of events, and there was lots of discussion on this topic, only a few lines on his mass at the new Nationals Stadium. I think if the reporter hd wanted to focus on the sexual-abuse victims, to reflect that in the title and lead, and then could have used the other information on the pope’s visit as background information to go at the end of the piece like he/she did.
The following line was what ended the piece, and it had one part that made me reread it a couple times to make sure I understood what it was saying. “Steve Brown, 55, a doctor from Fairfax, Va., said seeing the pope was particularly important to him because he is suffering from terminal cancer” Now, it may have made sense to some (I will admit to being a little sleep-deprived from Senior Research), but the author used him and he in the same sentence where he has two subjects, Steve Brown, and the pope. When I read it the first time, I thought that this doctor was interested in seeing the Pope, because the Pope had cancer and he wanted to see how it was affecting him. I stopped. That cannot be right, the pope is in excellent health. Then it made sense and I realized that it was the doctor who has cancer and was seeking spiritual support from the Pope. To make this sentence clearer I think it should have read: “Steve Brown, 55, a doctor from Fairfax, Va., said seeing the pope was particularly important to him because Brown is suffering from terminal cancer.” I know it is usch a nitpicky thing, but it makes this sentence so much clearer, and to end a story with this, it had better make sense and be strong.
