Recently in Analysis Category

This blog analysis will come from an article taken from Ground Report.

This story is about racism in the Tea Party movement. It's hard to determine if the story plays into the stereotype of the Tea Party being racist, as it really is a part of the media that is creating the stereotype.

The debate has been happening online as the party has become more prevalent over the last year. The article is questioning the validity of the claims, and where they come from.

The article uses both quotes and observation concerning the online forums, giving clear example for the examples of racism, as well as the examples of over-exaggerated reactions from the liberal left.

I talked with a friend of mine named Michael, who participates in these forums from the liberal point of view. He is a student at the university and has volunteered with the Democratic party over the last 7 years.

He said that what the report analyzed was not completely representative of the online forums, as they are usually not as heated and offensive as the article portrays. He also feels that the article is doing much more to create a stereotype of the online dialouge than it is of painting a clear picture of the racism issue.

The article I will use for this blog analysis is from The Guardian.

This article analyzes many different statistics concerning the release of Apple's newest piece of technology, the iPad.

The reporter used numbers to show how any iPads have already been sold, the ratio of free applications for the iPad to the ones for sale, and the amount of positive and negative feedback the iPad has been getting.

The numbers i this article are not overwhelming, as they help the author report how the iPad is being received by customers and how well they are selling.

There did not seem to be a lot of number crunching, as most of the stats seemed to be simply relayed by the reporter.

The percentage of free and paid applications seemed to be the only numbers that would have required math from the reporter.

The numbers used in the article came from a Needham & Co. analyst, TechCrunch, and polls conducted by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster. These sources were all listed completely and either immediately following or leading into a statistic.

The obituary I will se for this blog analysis is from The New York Times.

The obituary I will use is writting about legendary rock 'n' roll photographer Jim Marshall. Marshall died on Wednesday after being found unconscious in his room and being declared dead on the scene.

The obituary lead followed the traditional format. It began with his name, described his career and importance as a rock 'n' roll photographer, the circumstances of his death, and gave his age.

The lead worked as the description of Marshall explained the necessity of the obituary, and only explained that he was found in a hotel room as the reason for death has yet to be confirmed.

The obituary continues with the claim to fame section and the chronology, further sticking to the traditional obituary model. The accomplishments and descriptions of his life are speckled with anecdotes and quotes, making it different from a resume.

Sources used included friends Gail Buckman and Annie Leibovitz, along with excerpts from books and interviews quoting Marshall.

The press release I will use for this analysis is from reporternews.com, and the following press release from the event at News Week

The article covers a Palestinian press release concerning an American that had been charged with treason for working with al-Qaida, who was recently captured.

The writer focused almost exclusively on the American angle of the story in the beginning of the story, covering Adam Gadahn, the American who was a suspected terrorist suspect, and his connections to al-Qaida.

The next part focused on the atmosphere at the press release. AP writer Ashraf Khan reported, "Some observers were cautious about giving credence to the claim that Gadahn was in custody as reports emerged that the man arrested might instead be a Taliban militant leader." This choice helped engage the reader in the setting of the press release.

After this, the coverage contained a chrnology of the events that had led to the terrorist suspicions for Gadahn, and the Pakistinian response to his capture.

At the end, the article ends with a kicker, mentioning that "Gadahn has been on the FBI's most wanted list since 2004 and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest."

I will be comparing The New York Times and ESPN and their uses of multimedia in this blog analysis.

On The New York Times homepage, there are various multimedia outlets featured, including a slide show at the top covering the gold medal hockey game.

This slide show featured one sentence captions that described the accompanying picture. The writing was not very in depth, adding a little bit of background information on each photo. The focus of this form of multimedia was the access to the pictures covering the event.

The homepage also featured other news stories, most of which were followed by a camera or video icon, indicating the form of multimedia that came with the story.

The ESPN homepage did not have as many news stories, but it did have multiple multimedia options available.

The page featured a video in the center of the screen when the page was opened about the Olympic hockey game, and icons indicating video on the right side of the screen which listed various sports stories.

The writing for ESPN was much more extensive, as the videos were accompanied by a full length story beneath it. The writing of the story however didn't reveal much information that wasn't in the video.

The characteristics of the writing on the ESPN site was more redundant than the New York times page, which featured only necessary writing with their multimedia. This approach did a better job of featuring the multimedia, although it is clear that both news organizations made a concerted effort at incorporating video and pictures in their coverage.

I will be doing my blog analysis on the New York Times covering the plane crash in Austin Texas and the follow story done a day later.

The lead in the first story is very direct to the story and gives the who, what, where, and when.

This is not present in the follow story the next day as the lead instead draws parallels between this incident and 9/11.

The main story in the first-day report is structured in a martini glass format, giving pertinent information at the beginning of the story then describing the event chronologically.

The story the next day did not follow the inverted pyramid form as the article was more of an analysis of how the attack would be interpreted. It still had many news reporting characteristics however, including a lead, a nut graf, and a quote used at the end of the article as a kicker.

The second-day report doesn't include reports from other news organizations and it appears that the reporter went to the airport to talk to officials there as well as investigating how aviation experts are using the term "terrorism" in relation to the incident.

The follow seemed to only use a few of the facts from the first-day story and focused more on the cultural impact of the event than the immediate facts and reports that were covered in the initial story.

The article I will be doing for the blog analysis is the New York Times' story on the errant missile that caused 12 civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

The reporter gave the most important details in the first paragraph, including the cause of the event, those effected, when and where it happened.

The information is ordered in a margarita glass fashion. The first couple of paragraphs hit on the very important information, then was followed by a summary of the events in chronological order.

The attribution is placed right at the beginning of the story with the phrase "military officials said" sitting at the back of the first paragraph.

The next attribution was a direct quote from a U.S. general. This kept the tone of the story very official and brings the information from a general source to a specific military official.

The format of the story is very clear, and the attributions don't work against the overall tone of the story. The entire story uses attributions directly from military forces and officials and uses them to construct an effective description of the events that took place.

The article I will be analyzing for the analysis is The Montreal Gazette story on the effects of the mild temperatures in Vancouver on the Olympics.

This article did not have many sources for the material they were covering, as the terms "critics" and "organizers" were often used in places that should have given a more specific attribution.

The first source for the story is "mega-event" specialist and University of Calgary professor Harry Hiller. While he may have expertise in the field of event planning, he gave very little insight on how Vancouver was dealing with the problem or how the temperatures could effect the games.

The next direct source in the article was a quote from John Aalberg, the director of the Olympic village in Vancouver, who gave better insight into the consequences the warmer weather could have.

This source should have been placed ahead of the professor's quotes because as an official of the games, Aalberg gave details that were more based in fact than conjecture concerning the effect of the weather. Aalberg is actively involved in preparing Vancouver for the games and as the Olympic Village director, can get the opinions of the athletes competing.

The attributions made in this story are clear and set-up well, however they do not seem to be presented in the inverted triangle format as much of the important information pertaining to the Olympics are placed towards the bottom of the article. A re-ordering of the sources would allow the story to deliver the most important news first, then follow with reactions from outside sources such as Hiller.

The lead I will be using for this analysis is from the Pioneer Press; "Two separate fires in Eagan over the weekend left 13 people displaced from their homes."

This lead contains the most important information as it clearly gives the who (13 displaced people), the what (two separate fires), the where (Eagan) and the when (over the weekend). It also skips over the how and why, which will be covered in the next paragraph.

This lead is from a local media outlet, so the use of Eagan without the "MN" abbreviation behind it is correct since the readership would be familiar with the area. Also it can be assumed that none of the 13 people are notable since they are not named individually.

There are no wasted words in this lead. Nothing is repeated or too detailed in a way that takes from the focus of the story, which is the fires and the people that were effected.

It is a straightforward hard-news lead, finding the action and giving the most important details about the fires. The details are rather general and would influence the reader to look further into the story.

The information about the fires severity is also scarcely detailed, but the report of 13 people being displaced by them adds texture to the description and gives reader an idea of how serious the incidents were.