Brianna Lyle for March 4, 2011

My hard news lede: In an effort to overcome Col. Muammas el-Qaddafi’s reign of power, several rebel leaders are now looking to Western airstrikes under the United Nations for help.

Hard news: New York Times, March 1, 2011, Kareem Fahim

This article is mainly about rebel groups contemplating asking for foreign help in their fight for Libya. They do not want to use foreign intervention. A spokesperson for one rebel council said that if it is with the United Nations, it is not foreign intervention (something the rebel groups oppose greatly.)

This article is directed at the possible actions of rebel groups, what they are thinking about doing (asking the United Nations for help). This article does not showcase why the rebel groups are upset or what has happened.

Opinion: Salon, February 28, 2011, Glenn Greenwald

This article starts with the explanation of why the rebel groups, from my first article, will not ask for foreign help. “ It has been widely documented that many of the worst atrocities on behalf of Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi have been committed by foreign mercenaries from countries such as Algeria, Ethiopia and Tunisia. Despite that, the U.N. Security Council's sanctions Resolution aimed at Libya, which was just enacted last week, includes a strange clause that specifically forbids international war crimes prosecutions against mercenaries from nations which are not signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which protects many of the mercenaries Gadaffi is using.”

However, unlike the hard news article Greenwald then goes into his opinion on why such a clause would be made. He says “ Because, as The Telegraph's John Swaine reports, the Obama administration insisted on its inclusion -- as an absolutely non-negotiable demand -- due to a fear that its exclusion might render Bush officials (or, ultimately, even Obama officials) subject to war crimes prosecutions at the ICC on the same theory that would be used to hold Libya's mercenaries accountable.” Greenwald spends the rest of the article expanding on this.

This is pretty interesting stuff! I like that in this article this interesting fact was brought to my attention, whereas in a hard news or even profile story, this fact did not seem to be as present (Greenwald really makes this the center of his article whereas the hard news stories did not). He asked the important question here, why was this clause made? And then he looked to exterior sources such as The Telegraph for evidence to support his claim.

He was also able to explain this easier to the reader because he could literally say in his writing, why did this happen and then give a blunt answer that was certainly one sided. Hard news storied cannot do this.

In my opinion, this story just seemed juicier to me. The Bush and Obama administration could be potentially ruining a country due to their special interest. Any time War Crimes are involved, a story gets more interesting (which is why Greenwald’s story was of more interest to me).

Profile (TV): March 3, 2011, Democracy Now

The news clib I watch focused solely on the victims of Col. Muammas el-Qaddafi’s attacks on villages in Libya. This is much different than the other two articles I examined where the sole focus was more based on what exactly happened. In this news piece, we hear mostly about how citizens are recovering, what injuries were done to them and how the villages are with-holding.

This piece is directly aimed to make the audience feel badly for the people of Libya, whereas the opinion piece was to make you feel upset with our government and the news piece was simply there to point out the facts.