I just wanted to mention that the type of reporting that the writer did in their story is extremely similar to the type of writing that we perform in our weekly blogs. 1. Search the internet for news, 2, summarize information, 3. take quotes, 5. and source the article.
Recently in Analysis Category
The story that I found was titled Cost of Bay Area bridge project unprecedent, and was found on the Extra Extra page of www.nicar.org.
This story was basically a brief summary of an article that the reporter had found on a newspapers, San Francisco Panorama, online website.
It included statistics on the estimated price of the construction for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It summarized information as well as pulled direct quotes from the article.
The computer skills that the reported needed to create this story were very basic. All they needed to be able to do was search on the internet related articles, which they found, and summarize it.
The article I selected for my analysis was from the Star Tribune and titled "Metro home sales up, but median price sinks".
In this article the reporter has used numbers to show percentage that pending home sales has increased in the metro area since last October (34.4 percent), as well as the percentage closed sales has increased(27.8 percent). The reporter also shows that the median sale price though has decreased using amounts in dollar prices from this year to last year. ($180,000-$169,000).
I feel that the reporter placed both the percentage and amounts in a very clear and precise manor that makes the article not only easy to decipher, but adds the depth to the story.
Yes, the reporter did have to use math to calculate the percentage increased from this last year to this year in the sales. They also used math to find the median price of housing, which was smarter than using the mean price because in housing the amount could be affected by a very low price or a very high price to set off the majority average.
The sources for these numbers are attributed to the area Realtors associations.and are cited in the piece but not specifically named.
The obituary that I looked at was from the New York Times and was of Paul C. Zamecnik, a biologist that helped discover an RNA molecule.
The sources that are used in the obituary are his daughter Karen, Thoru Pederson, a colleague of his at the University of Massachusetts, and Sudhir Agrawal, another colleague and president and chief executive of Idera Pharmaceuticals.
The obituary has a very standard lead following the New York Times guidelines we learned in class, since it is from the New York Times Website. The lead does work because it tells a bit about him as well as an inspiring goal that he had in life.
The obituary differs from a resume because not only does it add in his accomplishments and jobs, but has quotes from others about him as a person, as well as background information that lets you know more about him, something a resume wouldn't have.
The Press Release that I found was at WhiteHouse.gov and was "Remarks by the President at Signing of the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act", I also found this in the Washington Post as "Obama signs law ending budget delays for veterans care".
The first thing that I noticed right off the bat between the press release and news report is the in the press release Obama talked for almost ten paragraphs before he even touches on what the new budget care reform is going to help with and doesn't go into details until the fourth to last paragraph, whereas in the new report the budget care reform is mentioned in the first paragraph, and already explained in detail by the 3rd.
I also noticed that Obama went into great detail in the people who helped make this reform possible, whereas in the New report the only person credited is President Obama.
The obvious key difference between the press release and new report, was the writer obviously took the main points of interest to the public and put it in the new report. They asked themselves whats going to be the most important for the viewer to know about this topic in the least amount of space.
The two different news organizations I looked at were the Star Tribunes Web site, and the New York TImes Web site.
The type of multimedia that the Star Tribune has on its website is video, audio, slideshows,podcast, photo galleries, and news graphics.
The type of multimedia that The New York Times has on their Web site is video, audio, galleries, opinions, and podcasts.
Both organization's multimedia helps their story because if gives other elements to the story than just the basic hard news writing, and allows the viewers to get a deeper knowledge of the story, as well as feel more involved. You are able to see the individuals and family members apart of the stories, and get a feeling that there not just a name on paper, and they have a face and a voice for that name. Also, both sites provide links to further information on the topics that newspaper don't have the capability to do.
The type of writing that goes into this multimedia are mostly subtitles for the video, explaining who the speaker is, small bylines for the pictures giving a brief description of what is going on in each photo, and a small exert of informaton next to each graphic explaing what the graphic is showing.
The characteristics of the writng that goes into the multimedia is very brief and straight to the point. Very few details, or descriptive words. Short and sweet.
The story that I looked at for my analysis was on further information relating to the blog I wrote about on the suspicious packages found in Princeton High School on Wednesday. This article was about the two teenagers and one adult that have been arrested in connection to the packages. I think that the reporter did an excellent job in the progession of information. They start out with just the facts, not names, ages, or charges in the lead. They then go into the next paragraph where they give the names and ages of the teenagers providing a little bit more information. The next couple paragraphs go into the charges being presented, and the most important background information on what happened, so if anyone who didn't read the previous article can figure out what is going on. The end of this story trails off into more and more background information that if needed be, could be cut off. The form of this article was definitely an inverted pyramid and I think was the most successful way of organizing this article because it shouts out the most critical information first, and then those that haven't read the previous article can get caught up, or those that have can move onto another article. Time management was key!
The story that I selected was called "Police: Wash. bikini baristas sold more than coffee at Grab-n-Go; 5 charged with prostitution", and was featured in the Star Tribune. In this article there was four different sources; the police, the Everett Herald, the owner Bill Wheeler, and Sgt. Robert Goetz. The sources specifically named were the owner, Sgt, and Everette Herald, while the police was more of a broad termanology. All sources are scattered through out the article at different points, and with different information that added to the piece. The way the reporter set up the attributions to tie in with the flow of the article and keeps all of them as "so an so said" or "so and so reports" or "so and so told". He keeps the language of he article very casual when he adds in the attributions but at the same time is giving proper information and attributions to his sources. I think this is a very clear way of adding in the sources, and think it worked really well in this article.
