Blog Post #1 (James Morley )
On reading the online New York Times article entitled Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings (01/30/11) I was immediately stuck by the strong nature of the stories lede. Having read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s The Elements Of Journalism, having no experience in ‘academic’ journalism, and little general interest in the writings published by professional journalists I found Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings as good an article to start with as any. The lede of the article:
“MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — In a building at NASA’s Ames Research Center here, computers are sifting and resifting the light from 156,000 stars, seeking to find in the flickering of distant suns the first hints that humanity is not alone in the universe.”
The purpose of an article’s lede is to serve as a “…succinct summary of the story’s main point.” In the case of this article the lede serves it’s purpose well, a general outline of the article. The structure of this ‘soft news story’ unfolds smoothly in slowly adding more and more detail to a story which is of “… relevance to your community of readers but is not as… pressing as a hard news story.” The article is written using the basic model of the inverted pyramid, a system of organizing information in journalism based on its importance. From the general lede of “NASA are still looking through space for more discoveries” to exploring more specific concepts such as that of “starshading” and a more extensive look into the research of the Kelper observatory. In the Huffington Post’s Fast Food Calories: 10 of the Fattiest Foods banality and pointless common knowledge regurgitates yet another widely known fact as news. The lede reads as follows:
“The average American consumes too few fruits, vegetables, whole grains and high fiber foods and too many refined foods and food items high in fats and added sugars. According to the USDA, added sugars and solid fats contribute about 35 percent of the daily caloric intake of the average American.”
After reading the section of The Elements Of Journalism and thinking through Kovach and Rosenstiel’s definition of news and exploration of the nature of news I was left with one question, why did this fairly basic knowledge (fatty foods are bad for you) merit being re-packaged, re-written and (somehow) re-published. Should news not be current information of importance, new discoveries, reviews, opinions, surveys… Is this really what the general public should be spending their time thinking about? Who really cares if Baja fresh nachos, charboiled steak? After reading this article I was struck not by journalist Grace Nasri’s research or writing but by her choice of story and her reason to write Fast Food Calories: 10 of the Fattiest Foods as it offered no real news or interesting ideas. What’s the point in it, people already know that both fat and fast food are bad for you, a list of unhealthy food adds nothing important to the knowledge that the reader already has on nutrition except provide them with a pointless list of specific places to eat all over the U.S.A. that are unhealthy eating options.
james, this is really, really good, except there's only two of them and there are supposed to be three. I like your comments and the way you're tying them into your reading in the Elements of Journalism. Your skepticism about about Fatty Food is good; it is important to always think 'why am i writing this story now?'
ReplyDeleteso good, but make sure to follow the assignment more closely next time.
HC