http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-resigns-egypt-cairo
With today's news that Egypt's president stepped down completely and relinquished power to the military, news organizations were pressed to quickly put up stories that explain to the public exactly what is going on in Egypt. In this case, the continued coverage of the protests in Egypt seems to have culminated in this one event, so reporters were probably prepared for this outcome.
The Guardian's coverage of this latest development uses quotes from a few protestors after this latest announcement as well as quoting lines from the Vice President's actual speech earlier today.
This is a situation unique to events where public figures speak and then the reporter can pose the words of the speaker, which serves the purpose of informing the reader of what exactly the speaker communicated, as well as setting up what was said, and then contrasting it to peoples' reaction. Readers of coverage about Egypt are invested not only in what the government is doing, but also strongly invested in how the Egyptian people feel about it.
The sources the reporter uses are not all explicitly outlined in the article. There are statements that come from unknown sources, which is not exactly the type of journalism Kovach and Rosenstiel outline. According to their thinking, it seems that in order to achieve transparency, it is necessary to explain to the reader exactly where all of your information comes from. Not all of the assumptions in this piece are backed up.
One example of this is when they write that “the army appears to have expected more from him [President Mubarak].” There is no explanation of who, if any, army officials and soldiers conveyed this opinion and how the reporters learned that information.
Because this is such a pressing news story with ongoing coverage, there are instances in which the reporters use a source who they talked to before this latest development. They site one source who spoke his desire for the military assumption of power yesterday, before it was announced.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/25/AR2011012500867.html
This article in the Washington Post is part of an emphasis on the part of their paper to look into gun regulations, an ongoing investigation into “The Hidden Life of Guns” as they call it. The reporter bases her news story on a new release of information that says inventories find a high number of guns are unaccounted for when licensed gun dealers are inspected.
One of her sources is the organisation that released that study, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. She reports their findings and quotes the president of this organisation when he expressed concern over the results of the study and what he speculates causes this insufficient regulation.
She also sites the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, using their statistics as quoting one of their “spokesmen” which I presume to mean that he is a PR person. Considering that his statement is simply a reassurance that the ATF cares about the issue at hand, this would seem likely.
The reporter also includes the information that she tried to get in touch with the NRA for the other side of the story, but they didn’t return her calls. This is a good call because it shows that she tried to incorporate their response, but they refused to even talk about the issue.
The president of the Brady Center is the main source of the story, which might have been avoided if the reporter had given more background about the issues at hand.
The reporter does not answer the question of how this compares to the past or what exactly happens to all the guns that aren’t accounted for. The reader is left to make their own assumptions.
With today's news that Egypt's president stepped down completely and relinquished power to the military, news organizations were pressed to quickly put up stories that explain to the public exactly what is going on in Egypt. In this case, the continued coverage of the protests in Egypt seems to have culminated in this one event, so reporters were probably prepared for this outcome.
The Guardian's coverage of this latest development uses quotes from a few protestors after this latest announcement as well as quoting lines from the Vice President's actual speech earlier today.
This is a situation unique to events where public figures speak and then the reporter can pose the words of the speaker, which serves the purpose of informing the reader of what exactly the speaker communicated, as well as setting up what was said, and then contrasting it to peoples' reaction. Readers of coverage about Egypt are invested not only in what the government is doing, but also strongly invested in how the Egyptian people feel about it.
The sources the reporter uses are not all explicitly outlined in the article. There are statements that come from unknown sources, which is not exactly the type of journalism Kovach and Rosenstiel outline. According to their thinking, it seems that in order to achieve transparency, it is necessary to explain to the reader exactly where all of your information comes from. Not all of the assumptions in this piece are backed up.
One example of this is when they write that “the army appears to have expected more from him [President Mubarak].” There is no explanation of who, if any, army officials and soldiers conveyed this opinion and how the reporters learned that information.
Because this is such a pressing news story with ongoing coverage, there are instances in which the reporters use a source who they talked to before this latest development. They site one source who spoke his desire for the military assumption of power yesterday, before it was announced.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/25/AR2011012500867.html
This article in the Washington Post is part of an emphasis on the part of their paper to look into gun regulations, an ongoing investigation into “The Hidden Life of Guns” as they call it. The reporter bases her news story on a new release of information that says inventories find a high number of guns are unaccounted for when licensed gun dealers are inspected.
One of her sources is the organisation that released that study, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. She reports their findings and quotes the president of this organisation when he expressed concern over the results of the study and what he speculates causes this insufficient regulation.
She also sites the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, using their statistics as quoting one of their “spokesmen” which I presume to mean that he is a PR person. Considering that his statement is simply a reassurance that the ATF cares about the issue at hand, this would seem likely.
The reporter also includes the information that she tried to get in touch with the NRA for the other side of the story, but they didn’t return her calls. This is a good call because it shows that she tried to incorporate their response, but they refused to even talk about the issue.
The president of the Brady Center is the main source of the story, which might have been avoided if the reporter had given more background about the issues at hand.
The reporter does not answer the question of how this compares to the past or what exactly happens to all the guns that aren’t accounted for. The reader is left to make their own assumptions.
Very good. You spot some real holes, which is a great way to practice - noting what NOT to do! The Guardian writers' to clarify what the quote meant and the Post's failure to make sense of the studies are both well spotted. Keep up the good work!
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