CJones

Early Saturday Morning, Andrea Schmit received a call notifying her that her husband, Army Sgt. Joshua Schmit died from injuries after a roadside bomb exploded near the vehicle he was driving. Sgt. Schmit, a 1999 Willmar High graduate had been in Iraq since May 2006 and was suppose to come home later this month. Schmit is the 58th person with Minnesotan ties to die in Iraq or Afghanistan over the war. Greg Schmit, Joshua's father, is in the Minnesota National Guard and is scheduled to be sent to Iraq next month. Greg says he still plans to go to Iraq and will follow his commanders orders.

The challenge in this story is not letting it fall victim to just another fallen soldier in Iraq. The article noted that Schmit was the 58th person with Minnesota ties to die over the war. The media respectfully covers each death with honor, however, the story is newsworthy, it's not irregular.

David Hanners reported on the story for the Pioneer Press. The Pioneer Press' coverage was more detailed. The reader is told that Schmit's nickname was "Oompa" and that it was just 10 days before he was suppose to return home. It was almost mentioned that his Humvee had been struck three other times by roadside bombs, but Schmit escaped with his life.

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A unanimous vote on Saturday by the U.N. Security Council confirmed that additional sanctions will be added against Iran because Iran refuses to stop enriching uranium. The sanctions will hult Iranian arms exports and freeze the assests belonging to 28 people and organizations involved with Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

The challenge in this story is conveying the information the way an average reader could understand. The facts were explained well for a person not involved in or following the stories in Iran could understand.

The Pioneer Press published an article about the sanctions by Colum Lynch. The Pioneer Press's coverage was concise and condensed. Both articles presented the same information, however, the Star Tribune took a more drawn out approach to reporting the story.

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Tuesday the Chinese stock market plummeted setting the tone for the rest of the world. Before Tuesday, the Chinese market had been soaring. The Dow Jones took it's steepest slide since the first day the market reopened after 9/11 attacks, Sept. 17, 2001.

The challenge in this story is reporting all the facts in terms that an average person can understand. I found it difficult to understand the reason why the drastic drop in the marktet occured in the first place. The story also lacked the "what's next" part of the article. The public is going to be anxious as to what the next steps are to getting the market back to normal.

Madlen Read wrote an article in the Pioneer Press that is shockinly similar in the facts reported. However, I still struggled to find the reason why. Read went into more detail about how the market was doing better than usual. His reason behind the drop is that that is the was the economy works; it goes up and it goes down.

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Jalal Talabani, 73, was unconscious when he was rushed by ambulance to a hospital in his home town of Sulaimaniyah. His office said he had fallen ill because of continuing hard work. Talabani has a history of fainting from exhaustion. After stabalizing, Talabani was flown to knew by Jordon for a check-up.

The challenge in this story is that it is so fresh, that it is hard to report a complete story with minimal details. The article was posted just a few hours ago.

CNN was quick to pick up on the story also. While CNN conquered Talabani fell ill because of continuing hard work, it was also reported that he had a heart attack from a senior U.S. military official. Talabani's son denied that his father had a heart attack.

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Computer and software companies, as well as airlines, are worried that the early daylight saving time will effect more than just resetting a clock. Computer and software companies are worried problems will arise with Windows and Outlook, however, the majority of the problem can be fixed by manually resetting a clock. Airlines have a greater concern. We are changing our clocks two weeks before European clocks and this presents a problem with connecting flights.

An interesting outlook in this article was not only the negative consequences from the early time change, but also the benefits. The article goes into detail about how the more sunlight at the end of the day can help people with seasonal affective disorder.

Brian Bergstein wrote an article that appeared in the Pioneer Press about the same issue, although, he failed to mention the consequences for the airline industry. Instead, Bergstein focused on computer issues and the problems with calendar times in programs. Reinan, of the Star Tribune, quoted Mats Heimdahl, director of the Software Engineering Center at the University of Minnesota as saying, "It's not the end of the world if you miss a meeting." Reinan's point was that if people are aware of the problem and extra cautious about dates and times, there should be no problem. On the other hand, Bergstein makes this issue to be much larger of an issue.

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Summary:
As of Tuesday, passports were needed to travel anywhere in the world; including traveling to Canada and Mexico for Americans. There will be a one year grace period to use a license or birth certificate, however, effective Jan. 1, 2008, a passport will be required for all international travel. Passport expediter services have already seen a 50 percent raise in passport sales.
Challenge:
Although this story is not hard news, idealy, the lede would have started out attracting the attention of any reader who many be reading the paper. Instead, the story starts out by telling the reader that if they are in Mexico at the present time without a passport, they will be in trouble when it comes time to re-enter the country.
Comparison:
In comparison to the Star Tribune article, I looked upon CNN.com. Rather then focusing on Mexico as a country to visit, CNN used Canada as an example. CNN was worried that the new laws will some how disrupt trade and they are afraid walls will be put up in reaction to the new law. As an alternative, a passcard has been discussed as a cheaper alternative to a passport.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/01/17/passport.rules.ap/
Lede: I noticed that the lede uses a semi-colon.

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