Milwaukee High Schools Ban Cell Phones
The Star Tribune article writes about the new ban on cell phones in Milwaukee high schools in the article, “Violence in Milwaukee schools prompts ban on cell phones.� The article used an incident that happened earlier this month when Milwaukee high school students used their phones to call family members and other adults to join in on a fight as the major event leading up to the ban. The article made both this particular fight and the cell phone ban the two newsworthy events. The writer cited violence as Milwaukee’s reasoning for banning cells, and the writer mentioned other major cities that have a ban as a result of cheating and distraction. The article was well-balanced, and the writer included many sources like the safety security assistant at the school where the fight happened, Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent, the district’s director of safety and security, the president of the National School Safety and School Services, a mother, a high school student, and a spokesman for Milwaukee schools, and a district attorney. http://www.startribune.com/484/story/962184.html
The lead was a little long, and it was not written in the past tense. The lead is an example of a buried lead because it included an anecdote about a fight that intensified due to cell phones, which led to the major news of the cell phone ban.
The USA Today article, “Students get message: Leave phones at home,� also covered the same event. This lead was very different from the first article because this lead was shorter, and it reported the news of the ban in a different way. This lead said that the ban was due to cheating and distracting and waited until the next paragraph to report the fight that The Star Tribune used in its lead and emphasized as the main reason for the ban. Also, the USA Today article made the story less localized by stating that “schools across the USA are cracking down…�, and The Star Tribune article specified it is Milwaukee that is currently banning cell. The USA Today article never made it clear that the ban is in Milwaukee except for the fact that it is datelined as Milwaukee. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-25-cellphones_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
In my opinion, the articles both communicated well because they were both well-balanced and had many sources ( in fact both articles used 3 of the same sources), and they cited many reasons that prompted the ban, like the violence, cheating, and distraction, as well as the events of the Columbine shootings and 9/11. I liked The Star Tribune article because it focused on the specific news that Milwaukee banned the phones since that is the most recent school to ban cell phones; however, I also liked The USA Today article because it made the news less localized and more broad by including a lot of information about several other cities that have similar bans and each city’s own reasoning for banning. I think USA Today was effective in making its article more newsworthy to a broad audience since it is a popular national publication, and I think The Star Tribune was effective in making it specifically about Milwaukee because it is not a popular national newspaper and Milwaukee is somewhat close to the Minneapolis area.
Comments
A fine comparison that does a good job of explaining the different angles on a similar story taken by two different media outlets. Note that the story in the Star Tribune was from the AP, so the Star Tribune probably played little role in deciding how to cast the story. It's likely that the AP picked up the story from a newspaper in Milwaukee or nearby.
By the way, the AP story was written in the past tense ("used") -- "fighting" was a participle.
Posted by: Dan Bernard | January 29, 2007 3:04 PM