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In this Wall Street Journal article about recent flooding in Beijing, the reporter uses numbers to detail death and injury tolls, monetary amounts of damage, amount of people relocated, and rain totals over time.

The numbers are limited to one or two references per paragraph and are broken up throughout the story to each discuss a different facet of the flooding and its aftermath.

One instance in which the reporter could have been more clear about the numbers is in a later paragraph where they discuss a 120 million yuan money allocation to help bring relief to the affected areas. Most people reading this (myself included) would have no idea what the U.S. dollar equivalent of 120 million yuan is, so a simple conversion could have been calculated to make it easier to read.

The reporter frequently cites Xinhua, a state-run media outlet, as the source of their information. Another source used is the blog of a municipal government, which announced the current death toll. After each number or figure used, the reporter accurately attributes that information to either source.

In Walker Art Center librarian Rosemary Furtak's Star Tribune obituary, writer Mary Abbe uses multiple first-hand accounts of Furtak as her sources. Because the obituary focuses on Furtak's career at the Walker, the sources are all former colleagues.

The lead is a mix of standard and alternative, as it discusses Furtak's biggest career accomplishments, but leaves out the when and where of her death. I think that the lead works, as it makes the obituary more personal and less formulaic.

The obituary is very similar to a resume. It details all of her biggest career accomplishments and does not have very much information about her personal life, except at the end. It differs from a resume, however, in that it paints a picture of her personality through her career.

In this New York Times article covering a speech Obama gave on the campaign trail Friday, the writer starts with quotes from the speech, but as he goes into the context of the speech more, he draws from other recent quotes to build the story. Later on in the story, the writer uses quotes from Romney to detail his campaign's response to Obama's performance in terms of unemployment. Most of this article focuses on the context of the speech, which is the current state of unemployment in the U.S. Because of this, the speech venue and environment are not described too thoroughly. It is mentioned, though, that it was a "sympathetic crowd in an elementary school gymnasium."

The Star Tribune has a section at the bottom of their page titled "Latest Photos & Videos" to give the reader audio/visual options aside from the written stories. This section is a random assortment of photo galleries and videos, presented in thumbnail format. In the lists of headlines, it is specified whether or not a particular story has a video to along with that story. The writing in the Star Tribune's photo galleries and videos is very succinct and informs the reader while allowing the photograph to truly tell the story. Each caption is two or three sentences.

National Public Radio, being first and foremost an audio news source, has a section entitled "listen" to the side of the section tabs. Stories that can be listened to are clearly labeled with a speaker icon. The site also links to their blog titled "The Picture Show", which features the photographs of various artists. The story beneath them is a brief description of the artist and each photograph features a caption written by the artist, in quotes.

In this story by the Washington Post, the attribution is very typical for a hard news story.

The story uses direct quotes, such as one from Turkish president Abdullah Gul, that are sourced from other news agencies, such as Turkish agency Anatolia and the Associated Press. Throughout the story, references to "Turkish news media" and "state news agency" are made. The reporter also cites two other Washington Post articles in their story, allowing the reader to be referenced back to those stories and gain further context about the story at hand. SANA, the official Syrian news agency, is also cited.

The sources are scattered throughout the story, with one mentioned about every other paragraph.

No records are cited, as the article relies on quotes and information from various other media agencies to convey the message of the story.

The attribution in this story is extremely effective because the reader probably would not notice the attribution unless they specifically looked for it. The flow of the article allows for the story to read quickly and seamlessly.

In an article written by the Wall Street Journal, the lead approaches the death of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz from the perspective of his sons.

The 'where' (Mecca, Saudi Arabia) and 'what' (the burial of their father) are both detailed in the lead. The 'who' is more general, as it focuses on the sons of King Abdulaziz but does not list their names. When the burial took place is not included in the lead.

The lead also suggests that the royal family of Saudi Arabia is at a crossroads in a time of rapid change in the Middle East.

The reporter, Ellen Knickmeyer, likely approached the article from the perspective of the sons to both include emotion and make the story more interesting than just simply stating the time and place of the leader's burial.