Recently in Analysis Category

In the USA Today, a reporter found that a recent recall of beef products did not include a recall from a school lunch program.

The reporters make it known in their report that they got a document under the Freedom of Information Act.

They found that although the government has a zero-tolerance policy for salmonella in food bound for schools, the meat was still released to the schools.

The reporters obviously needed to be able to analyze the various documents that they were able to obtain from the government and make sense of them. This would require the ability to make connections between the documents to make them relevant in the larger picture.

Along the sidebar, the reporters included these documents in pdf form, along with pictures of inspectors examining food products. They also included a table of the top providers of beef to schools.

This article discusses a incident in an Utah school where an Indian student was suspended for wearing a nose ring to connect with her culture.

It then goes on to discuss how people in different cultures find it difficult in America to express their identity.

Jeff, a student at the University of Minnesota, said the article does a good job of moving beyond the stereotype.

He said the article stays objective and tells the story how it is and uses quotes that do not demean the speaker. The article also does not make assumptions about the people in it and explains what cultural practices mean.

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In this obit, the author uses a lead somewhat different from the nytimes-style lead. He does not mention how old he was or where or when he died, in fact it doesn't mention that he is actually dead. I assume it is because he assumes that the reader realizes that they are in the obituary section of the site. He starts out with out he is known for, and then goes into a short chronology afterward, doesn't mention his death until the fourth paragraph.

This style of writing works in its own way only if the reader was aware they were in the obit section.

The reporter uses the deceased's wife as a source as well as colleagues, who talk about his personality and what they thought of him. By using these sources, the reporter is able to get a better idea of what the deceased was like a person, and not just a list of accomplishments.

The agenda was constructed in a bullet or list format, highlighting the important points of the meeting and including everything that was discussed.

The article about it mainly sticks to these main points, but adds more commentary and does not simply reiterate was has already been said.

The article also does not include everything said in the meeting, only weeding out the most important parts( how much the budget costs, where it will go etc..)

The reporter made his story much more easy to read because of the relatively casual language used in it, and how he took the most important parts rather than every detail.

Meeting   Article

The USA Today home page has a seperate section for video and photo. The New York Times' home page has a section for video on its home page with a tab for a multimedia page with photos.

Both of the photo galleries act as news stories in themselves, as they insert facts about the story along with a caption of what is in the picture.

The video sections provide a brief documentary of the stories, which gives a better idea of what the scene of the news story looks like, how the subjects act....etc.

The photos give a good visual representation of the story, and gives good information about the story as a whole.

Both Photo sections look very similar to each other in format. However, USA Today's section gives photos from random news stories from that day, while the New York Times gives galleries for specific news stories. This could be due to the type of reader each one gets. The USA Today reader might not have time to look at all of the pictures for one story, and would rather look at a picture for all the stories of the day.

The writing in both sections is in the present tense, like in a headline.

The lead in the first gives the results of the cost analysis, while the second focuses on the vote that is planned following the analysis.

The main news is summarized based on the timeliness of the article. For example, the lead in the first gives the latest development, and the second lead gives the latest development while the lead from the first is found in greater detail a couple of paragraphs later.

The first article also hints that Sen. Max Baucus would push for a panel vote, and the next article gives that same paragraph verbatim, except in the past tense.

Similarly, some of the paragraphs found in the first article are also found in the second.

The second article also gives more reaction from lawmakers, probably due to more time to get them, which gives the article more perspective than the first because the reader gets a better idea of the thinking behind the bill.

Articles: Oct. 8, Oct. 7

The reporters have organized the information into what happened, what the bills proposed and other details of the votes, and what the actual vote tally was

From there, they continue to give specific reasons why individual Senators voted they way they did.

In this way, it is helpful to know what happened right away, then the details of the votes, and then why it happened later on. This is the best way to write this story because knowing why it happened right away would only confuse the reader.

Giving the reader the "why" is very important because it gives the reader a better idea of why they feel that the bills are sufficient or not sufficient, and what are the main problems with the proposed plans.

They end with what the Senators plan on doing, giving the reader some sort of an idea of what is going to happen next.

The sources used in the story are Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann, who were the speakers at the forum.

The attributions are scattered throughout the story, because the author sets up his quotes with different topics discussed at the forum.

Most of the information in the story is based on what happened at the speech and what the representatives, other than basic information that would not take much research to find.

The reporter is trying to convey what was discussed at the forum and how people reacted using the quotes in the story.

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