The recent USA Today article “Wet and wild: That’s the spirit of this year’s Jazz Fest” did everything but portray the spirit of the event. Jazz Fest, a two-week music festival in New Orleans, has been a tradition in the Big Easy for decades, but audiences wouldn’t know that from reading the article. The writer starts the article with an anecdotal lead about the “ghost of Katrina,” a move many find very cliche. I mean, we’ve all heard about Katrina and we all know that New Orleans suffered greatly, but most people now that the city is once again thriving. After the lead the article turns into a weather report with the writer’s account of the rainy start to this years event. Finally, in the third paragraph of the article, the writer got into the music, the whole point of Jazz Fest. Descriptions about the audience enjoying the music in their ponchos were followed by more details about the rain and finally, by bullet points highlighting a select number of the artists performing this year. 

I was really excited when I saw this article because of my knowledge of the famous event. But I was sadly disappointed after reading it. For a reader who knows something about Jazz Fest (me) the article was successful in highlighting some performers, but failed to mention anything about who else was there during the first week and would be there during the second week. And for a reader who knows nothing about Jazz Fest, the article failed to describe any details about the event, such as when it started, what actually goes on and other vital details. After reading the article, I found myself asking many questions that were never addressed. The article would have been much more successful had it focused less on the weather and more on the nature of the eclectic event. 

Well, maybe they didn’t really leak- but the fact is, there’s ten hours of John Lennon video that has suddenly appeared, creating a legal battle in the process.  In a recent article from USAToday, Denise Lavoie of the Associated Press reported about how the video, which was recorded February 8-10, 1970, is being fought over between Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widow, and World Wide Video, LLC.  Both claim to have bought the rights for the video, though no decision has been made yet over who really will have those rights legally enforced.  As far as Lavoie’s writing style goes, I was a little confused as I was reading; the lede gives the impression that the piece will be a feature about Ono’s struggle to legally keep the tapes, or something along those sentimental lines.  However, she switches back into some kind of inverted pyramid structure, though I’m not sure how she decided upon the importance of certain details when she was writing.  If the article is about the fact that a lawsuit has been filed, then she should have put the details regarding each sides’ purchase of the rights earlier, rather than towards the end of the piece.

I thought it would be most appropriate this week to actually talk about a profile piece since I am working on one of my own. The story about Nicole Kidman in USAToday on April 23 talked specifically about Nicole Kidman and her work as a U.N. Ambassador. This particular piece also focused on her work on the U.N. Development Fund for Women.

Although the story does focus a little on the specific U.N. Development Fund for Women the way the journalist structures the story as if Nicole Kidman is the focus. She basically is featured as the most newsworthy event in the story. She is in the lead and then most of the background is given about her and her history in the U.N. I thought this would be a good route for the journalist because she has a very high prominence and can attract readers. The only criticism I have for the piece deals with the last few paragraphs of the story. I don’t think the journalist needs to include the background of Kidman’s marital status or the latest movie she will be in. This story is highly focused on Kidman’s participation in the U.N. and I think the focus should stay on that subject and not diver to her personal life or career as an actress.

A recent USA Today article called “Caring Awards honorees push the limits of reaching out” left me feeling not only warm and fuzzy but, more importantly, satisfied with the information I got in the amount of time I spent.

The article was one of the shortest I have read in USA Today while also being one of the most effective. The lead of the article is what really set the story apart for me. The lead tells readers exactly what happened, who it happened to, why it happened to them and where it happened all the while including some sense of personality with an anecdote at the very beginning. Following the great lead was a short background section that provided readers with important details about the actual organization sponsoring the awards, how winners are selected and even a tidbit about previous honorees.

The article was broken into two sections, a beginning with background information about the awards and a middle/ending with a short blurb about each of this years 10 honorees. This organization system worked well for the article because it provided a consistent flow that made the information easy to soak up. Each honoree was featured, organized from the oldest to the youngest, with a short paragraph about the accomplishments he or she has made.

This article, with its effective lead, flawless organization and cheesy yet appropriate quotes, is one that I will surely call upon again in the future as a prime example of successful journalism. (As a side note, I did have one question when I finished reading: why are the “young people’s” ages included and the “adults” ages are not?)

An article in USA Today called “Another sweeping special when “Planet” freezes over” is a good example of journalism that is effective yet forced at the same time. The article is very short but despite that still packs quite a punch of information, maybe too much in fact. 

The article focuses on a new series inspired by the successes of Blue Planet and Planet Earth. The new show, Frozen Planet, is an 8 hour event exploring the icy reaches of the North and South poles. Because it is not set to air in the UK until fall 2011 and in the US until spring 2012, the author of the article decided not to divulge too many actual details about the show (or maybe he couldn’t that many.)

 Rather, this article served to start a buzz about the show. And the big buzz the author was trying to create is about the emotional and physical struggles the crew is experiencing over the two years it will take to film the show. By including information about how dangerous and treacherous the job will be the author is using an emotional appeal to try and sell the show to potential viewers. Another use of heavy emotional appeals comes when the author puts a “green” spin of the show and the article. Global warming is a very hot (excuse my pun) topic right now that many people are emotionally connected to. By tapping into such issues the article gains an extra sense of urgency and relevance, making both the show and the article seem more prevalent than they may actually be.

After the emotional appeals the author switches gears and includes technical information about the type of equipment and filming techniques used to make the show possible. The technical part is then followed background information about the successes of similar shows in the past. By including such a wide array of information about the subject the author makes the article seem jumbled. The show itself is still very far off and this article is one of the first covering the subject. Because of that the article seems like a random array of any facts the reporter could get his hands on.

Although the article is effective in creating an initial stir about Discovery’s new endeavor, the lack of organization and direction in the writing makes me think it is just too soon to even introduce the project that is still 4 years away.

Based upon our class discussion of feature stories and different leads,  Nanci Hellmich’s human interest piece on a man’s struggle with weight loss, “Coming right up: Improved health,” was the most interesting.  Found in the Life Section of USA Today, the story discussed the life changing eating habits of a restaurant chain owner. 

Hellmich began with a narrative lead explaining the point of interest, the location of the story, as well as the focus and direction of the story. 

In her second paragraph she introduced details that would induce interest and appealed to human emotion.  She begins her story by explaining who she is focusing the story around.  Instead of introducing the nut graf in the second paragraph, she explains the newsworthy quality of the topic. 

Her third paragraph is the nut graf, explaining the basis for the story, more details, and other emotional appeals.  However,  I found her feature story to be jaunting after reading several articles in the inverted pyramid style.   In addition, Hellmich uses a chronological order to format her details. 

Furthermore, the use of present tense and more details led the diction in the article away from concise, and efficient wording.  The wording was extremely free flowing, and excessive, yet still left questions for the readers.

Planet Green, a new Discovery cable network, is apparently going to put fun and creativity into the environmentalist movement, not to mention some A-list stars. The network, set to air in nearly half of the nation’s TV homes on June 4, will be the first fully “green” cable channel featuring an all-original lineup of 14 series. With stars like Tommy Lee, Ludacris and Adrian Grenier as the main characters and with the trendy “green” focus behind all the programming the channel can expect nothing less than success. And articles like USA Today’s ‘New channel will dial up environmentalism’ can only help achieve the success the network expects.

The writer does a great job of informing readers about the most important aspects of the new network. He starts out with the basic, barebones information first (the 5 Ws) to tell readers exactly what the article is about: a new Discovery network featuring celebrities aimed at winning over casual environmentalists. After reading the lead and the nut graph of the article I felt very satisfied and informed about the new channel. The information after the lead followed an inverted pyramid style, giving more and more detailed information about the network, the actual shows and the featured celebrities as the story went. Throughout the story the author made great use of quotes by including them in appropriate places (and by actually having quotes from appropriate, interesting people.) The author chose to go in-depth about two of the shows, giving readers an inside look into the premise behind them. Because of the article’s length the writer did not have room to divulge the juicy secrets behind all the shows. To solve this problem the author included an info-graph with a tidbit about six other shows being included on the network.

Overall this article was an effective tool to teach readers about the upcoming Planet Green network. The writer, by following an inverted pyramid style, including info-graphs and using quotes wisely, made the story interesting and informative without pushing environmentalist views on readers.   

 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.

Written for the DeLand-Deltona Beacon, Pat Hatfield’s article on Cat Tail Corner is an example of mediocre journalism in the local market. 

The lede of the story started off strong answering all but one of the five W’s. 

The nut graf answered the why, followed by details on the defendant, Kristy Grant.  Yet, Hatfield’s lede was too wordy to still have the lede continued into the nut graf. 

The article was disorganized in the layout of the unfolding details.  Hatfield placed important points to late in the story. 

Details that were necessary to understand why Kristy Grant was being fined were found buried in the eighth paragraph. 

Furthermore, Hatfield uses facts without making clear to the reader the attributed source. 

Examples of Hatfield’s errors can be easily found in paragraphs seven and eight. 

Hatfield very effectively quotes and maintains a consistent flow through out the article. 

I decided to look at a different kind of article for this entry, and I chose to take a look at a product/tech comparision.  This is because I feel that you cannot affectively write about these things in the same way you would a murder or hurricane or an election.  Sometimes I have seen it, but those articles seem to be shorter than most, or else I am not compelled to read it at all.  So I was drawn to read an article about unversal remotes from the New York Times.

One thing that caught my eye was when the author wrote “in the last five years the number of remotes in the average household has increased to 3.3, from 2.7″  I got a little confused.  In my head, when he wrote the number of remotes had increased my head initially thought “from something to something else,” so when he wrote “to something from something else” it threw me off.  But I think this is important to point out because numbers can very easily become confusing for a reader, and for this little thing to possibly throw off a reader because it does not line up with the way the rest of the sentence is formulated. 

I noticed that in this kind of article, the writer has a lot more leeway with their language.  The intro and lead are much more creative than what we have seen in other newsstories.  This seems almost essential to this kind of article because without the creative flar that pushes readers to continue reading about the features and stats of the ever-exciting universal remotes I doubt many would get far in the article.

The sign of a good article product comparison article, I think, is leaving the reader feeling like they understand and can make an educated decision on their own.  If the article leaves the reader scratching their head, it is probably either not appropriately written for the audience or it is too technical an article for the reader.  This article was definately well-written for a general audience and was very informative and enjoyable to read. 

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. 

A recent article by Washington Square News dealt with a controversial issue, but mainly buried the lead while editorializing between quotes.  The content was there, but just ignored.  The lead singer (Pearl Abegg) of Be Your Own Pet provided some great answers in her interview;  Abegg touched on quite a controversy in her interview, but instead of the lead reading “Universal Music Group censors Be Your Own Pet US album release due to “the violent nature of the songs” the lead ends up being a fan boy charecter trait observation of the band’s lead signer.

The lead reads ” Why does Jemina Pearl seem so much younger than her 20 years? It all comes back to that giggle.” It sounds like the journalist is more concerned with displaying his crush on Abegg to the world in hopes of her acceptance rather than reporting on a newsworthy controversy.  After two paragraphs of describing the lead singer, then after hyping up the new album, only then does the journalist finally include the quote about the album’s censorship.  Then at this point the journalist doesn’t comment on it.  Though the next few quotes from Abegg speak for themselves, it seems the journalist is too fixated on this (very attractive) girl’s personality rather than doing his job of reporting what matters to the public, and corporate media censorship is certainly an issue that needs addressing.

A recent Yahoo News article discussed the possibility of Apple allowing customers the ability to access the entire iTunes online store’s musical library for one flat fee or a smaller monthly fee for ipod and iphone users willing to pay a premium.  This interesting proposition would set Apple to bridge the gap between the two types of online musical sales companies; one being single songs/single album sales, and the second being monthly fee infinite use dealers.  Such an act would certainly be revolutionary as well as semi-monopolisitc, yet this news article does not touch on this.

The article is quite short.  The article said Apple was not available for immediate comment.  In this case it might has been a better decision to wait for a comment (as long as that would not be weeks or months from now) instead of printing a114 word, 4 paragraph, uninformative piece that merely leaves the audience in question.  The article seems more like a vague press release, a quick advertisement for Apple, instead of a piece of informative journalism.

In the recent article in USA Today, “Hospital to fire workers in Spears case,”it is apparent that employees at UCLA Medical Center are going above and beyond their normal responsibilities. Although the article states that several employees were fired for looking at Britney Spears medical records, it does not state how many or what records they were looking at. While we can assume that these records were obviously of much interest to people, it is uncertain as to why their punishment should be so harsh.

The story also fails to state when the action took place and who exactly was involved but what is certain is that these employees may think twice about taking a look at a celebrities private medical records again. Although, some doctors were only “disciplined” for their actions, other obviously less important people were immediately fired, with no justification. Their is no real response as to what Spears thinks about these snooping doctors but we can predict that she may not want to be hospitalized again anytime soon.

It is a war of the tabloids when it comes to celebrities and the photos of their newborns. Surprisingly, we, as a society, seem to care more about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby pictures than we care about the actual events that are taking place in the world around us. USA Today featured an interesting article “Let’s make a baby-picture deal” in today (Thursday) Febuary 28. The article featured a story on the proud new parents of twins, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. The story commented on the “talk” of the expected money sums, which have been crowding the tabloid offices with who will be the first to feature the newcomers of Hollywood; People magazine takes the prize.

Baby photos are something that grabs a readers attention, according to the managing editor of People magazine. The magazine itself loves to be the first to have these photos and America loves reading the articles and viewing the photos. But why? Why do we love so much to read about celebrities having babies, and why do we care to see the first images after they are born? Some people don’t even have pictures of their own children, yet celebrities children are apparently much more fascinating. While reading this article, I was dumbfounded by how many people will be the first to pick up the new issue for the pictures of the newborns. Have we turned into a culture that lives vicariously through celebrities, as their lives are more drastic than our own?

USA Today chose to use examples, from People, in regards to formerly new parents and their children; Lisa Marie Presley’s issue had over 1.9 million sales, Patrick Dempsey had over 1.6 million, Christina Aguilera’s reports were not yet figured, and finally, taking the lead was Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with approximately 2.2 million sales for the shots of their new bundle of joy, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, according to the USA Today article. These numbers seem overwhelming, and still I wonder why we care? Of course they are cute, but we don’t know them, and never will, so why must we oodle over these babies we don’t know?

Today I want to discuss the radically different ways that a story can be presented, using the New York Philharmonic playing in North Korea as an example. I’ve found two different articles, one in the Financial Times and one from Yahoo News that treat the story completely differently.

The Financial Times article has the headline “Ovation in Pyongyang is music to US ears.” It leads with the North Korean audience’s standing ovation for the US musicians and talks about the performance as generating “rapturous applause.” It has a lot of really interesting quotes from North Koreans (which I wonder how they got, since North Korea is notoriously restrective of the press), and by the end makes it seem like democracy and prosperity and general fun are about to break out in North Korea because of the New York Philharmonic.

The Yahoo News story, though, paints a different picture, under the headline “New York Phil gets muted reaction.” It mentions the standing ovation in the second paragraph, but focuses significantly more on how the concert wasn’t well received by the North Korean media. It doesn’t have any quotes from actual North Koreans, but has a bit from state-controlled newspapers.

I’m not really sure whether the performance was met with “rapturous applause” or golf claps, or why these stories are so different, but I have a few ideas. For one, FT is a British paper, which from what I understand, doesn’t try very hard to hide its liberal positions; Yahoo is essentially a wire source, which strives for neutrality. It’s probably to FT’s political advantage to report that North Korea is on the verge of breaking out into democracy, though I’m still damn impressed that they got those quotes from real North Koreans.

Another cause for this disparity could be the sources. Yahoo is looking at the state papers, while FT is talking to the people, which in a totalitarian state, probably say very different things.

The Daytona Beach News Journal, www.news-journalonline.com, captured readers in its article about the Oscars and the staring candidate: “No Country for Old Men.” The article features the big celebs and their debutes as the Oscars take over Los Angeles. I enjoyed how the article presented the winners again, in case anyone forgot, but I also liked how they incorporated the memorable quotes of those who won. For example, Tilda Swinton, best supporting actress from “Michael Clayton,” gave a memorable speech about how she would not be here if it was not for her agent. While watching the Oscars last night, it was emotional to know how passionate she is about acting and how thankful she is for her career. To include quotes from those special talents brings a close to home feel and spoke to me as a reader. The article continues to include excerpts from the Coen brothers as well as Spanish actor Javier Bardem.

The article incorporated the facts of the whole night and gave readers an opportunity to relive the event. The various films and actors that represented the best were listed and a list of those that were nominated were included as well. As I was enjoying the Oscars last night, I remember thinking they did not do much of a tribute to Heath Ledger. To me, the papers seem to constantly have articles in regards to the actor’s death; therefore, I found it odd that they did not dedicate more of the event to him with a small clip of his work and life. That was more of a side note; nonetheless, the article made me feel as though I was watching it all over again. It was a fun read.

I recently came across an article on the film based on the life story of French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby.    The article titled,” The Truth about the Diving Bell and Butterfly,” was found on Salon.com.  I chose this article for this week’s blog discussion based on our previous class discussion of articles with an inverted pyramid style.   This article begins with the discussion of the film, which occurred most recently having been nominated for four Oscars.  Yet for all of the details, the most interesting part of the story comes in the conclusion of the first section.  The article author Beth Arnold reveals that close family members of the deceased (Bauby) do not believe that the film was an honest portrayal of Bauby’s personal life.   Which raises the question of what would be the most important lead for Arnold to focus on?  Arnold should have focused on the human interest aspect of the story, better explaining the real life conflict between Bauby’s ex-wife and Bauby’s girlfriend. 

Which raises an interesting question, can the family sue the screenwriters for not accurately portraying the life of Bauby?  I feel the family does not have a case.  The ex-wife of Bauby was a part of the screenwriting process from the beginning as a representative for her children’s interests.  Also, the  film is said to be  “based upon a true story.”  I think  that screenwriters are given some leeway when creating an artistic effort which has to appeal to audiences across the globe.  By placing the slight friction in Bauby’s love life the screenwriter was more than likely trying to keep audiences emotionally captivated.  I don’t think its necessary for the family to criticize the film, when they had a chance to make changes from the beginning. 

Arnold’ article continues with references to the actual story of Bauby’s life, followed by a discussion of the altered story in the film.  The party which should be truly outraged at having Bauby’s life story altered is the long-time girlfriend of Bauby, Florence.  When Bauby went into the hospital Florence stayed by his side until his last breath.  Yet, Florence’s influence is ignored  throughout the film.  That is the falsehood which should be corrected in the film. 

In the USA Today article Weekend update: ‘SNL’ is back in the race, the lede informs us that Saturday Night Live is back from the writers’ strike. The deck however, speaks of the fact that the show is without an actor cast as Barack Obama. While both of these stories are clearly news worthy, I believe that the lede, deck, and also the entire article, miss one key question.  

It is clear that in the most exciting election to date, SNL is looked upon to serve us with witty imitations and hilarious cracks at the candidates, but I believe that a huge question to ask is, “will they be able to?” I can’t speak for anyone else, but in recent years of watching SNL, it seems that it has lost its flow. The show I remember years ago had skits that made everyone roll, but as of recent, it hasn’t been up to ‘lock box’ SNL par. Hopefully, the show will surprise me and come out swigging with some refreshing skits of Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Huckabee, but I am not sure if they can. 

  With the help of Tina Fey who is hosting and some fresh new faces it is definitely possible, but I think it is a little premature to jump back on the SNL bandwagon just yet. The four weeks of upcoming episodes may prove me wrong, and I hope they do, because quite frankly, just running ‘best of’ episodes from when they used to be funny, just won’t cut it.

Fifteen year old Miley Cyrus is taking the world by storm with her popular television show and addictive cheesy songs. In the recent article in USA today, “Hannah Montana concert film earns extended theater stay,” I have come to find that not only does Miss Cyrus have a TV show and record deal but apparently her concert actually made it into theaters too! Although the article explains very little of her many accomplishments, i know from personal sources (babysitting jobs) that she is an extremely successful young woman!

If rumors are true, It is said that her most recent concert sold out within a few minutes of tickets being released which may be justification for bringing the concert into theaters. Although, I personally think that a concert just isn’t the same in the movies as it is live in person. The only plus I can see to viewing the film from your comfortable theater chair with your popcorn and thousands of screaming kids is the cool 3-D option that is apparently offered at all theaters showing the film. The movie itself has already made a staggering 29 million and will apparently be staying in cinemas for another couple of weeks depending on how well it continues to sell tickets.

Either way I think it is safe to say that Hannah Montana is taking over, beware!