Le News

29-year-old Neil H. Rodreick II was a convicted sex offender who, instead of registering, conned three men and an entire community into believing he was actually a 12-year-old boy.

In 2002, after spending seven years in prison on a charge of indecent proposals to two 6-year-old boys, Rodreick met up with Lonnie Stiffler, 61, and Robert J. Snow, 43, over the internet and began sexual relationships with the men after convincing the two that he was 12 years old. Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times added:

Another man living in the house, Brian Nellis, 34, a sex offender Mr. Rodreick had met in prison, is believed to have aided Mr. Rodreick in the ruse, the authorities said.

Rodreick talked the three men into registering him into four charter schools in Arizona under the name (or a variation of the name) “Casey Price� and was eventually caught in Surprise Ariz. after about four months of enrollment at Imagine Charter School. He had been posing as a minor for almost two years.

Steinhauer leads the reader in with a storytelling approach where she tells us about this seemingly all-American boy whose only imperfection is a poor attendance history. She gives the sense that something is not right in this puzzle, and encourages us to continue reading about a boy who is obviously not what he seems, until ultimately she reveals Price’s true identity. This story evokes anticipation. As a reader, I want to know more about this person, and how he was able to scam the whole community.

The Associated Press offers a punchy delivery of a lead and is more straight forward than the one published in the New York Times:

A convicted sex offender attended at least two Arizona middle schools, sat through seventh-grade courses and turned in homework as he moved around the state pretending to be 12 years old, officials say.

However, this quick stab approach seems to be too punchy in the sense that we are jumping from point to point without much correlation.

**Opinion**
Both stories do a great job announcing the key points to the event. The AP article depicts the “boy� as being shy and disciplinary, but does not give way into the suspicions of parents of children who attended the charter school in Surprise, Ariz. Steinhauer reports that although some community members were easily fooled, others questioned him—school director Dawn Gonzales said, “Every adult that encountered him said something here is not right. “He just looked older. They kept saying, ‘Are you sure he is 12?’�

And although it is a bit lengthier, Steinhauer’s version of the story is easier to follow with its use of chronology.

Posted by Kayleigh Menge at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Caffeine may ease post-workout muscle pain

A recent study shows that caffeine consumption just before a vigorous workout can decrease the muscle pain that often occurs one-to-two days after exercise. CNN.com states:

Known as delayed-onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, the pain is common in the day or two after a workout that was more intense than normal. Exercise that involves eccentric contraction of the muscles is particularly likely to cause delayed muscle pain.
The study tested nine females who, according to CBS News, "were not regular caffeine users and did not regularly engage in resistance training."
The women were tested with placebo pills and caffeine pills that were measured to contain the same amounts of caffeine as approximately two cups of coffee, which they took an hour before resistance training. The women who took the caffeine pills reported nearly half of the muscle pain as the placebo group.

CBS News reports the study quickly and briefly, making their points clear and strong. Their lead serves as sort of an FYI with a creative and informal approach, and, although they mention some of the findings in the beginning of the piece, it takes them all the way until the seventh paragraph to finally get to talking about the study and its results.

CNN's article is formatted much differently. It very quickly brings us into a lead, which simply explains the premises of the article:

In a small study of female college students, researchers found that a caffeine supplement seemed to lessen the familiar muscle pain that crops up the day after a particularly challenging workout.
From there we are given definitions of what these muscle pains are, which is followed up by step-by-step coverage of how the study was conducted, and we end with a gatherating of what these findings mean as well as how we can learn to use caffeine as a post-workout muscle reliever.

**Opinion**
I think that CBS tries a little too hard to bring the reader in with an anecdote, and spends less time explaining what exactly is going on with these findings. CNN does a much better job giving a sort of play-by-play analysis of how the information in the study can be useful to us as readers.

Posted by Kayleigh Menge at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)