Smith Updates

This article by Alison Rourke was in The Guardian Monday. It details how Clive Palmer plans to build a replica of the Titanic, but with 21st century technology. A few hours before he announced this he had dropped another bomb saying he was going to go for a seat in Parliament.

The writing style is interesting in this article. She uses it a bit more creatively, starting off with a more conversational tone before getting to the real news. She also kind of wrote both stories at the same time, his run for parliament and building the Titanic II.

The article is well-attributed and well-quoted. Palmer's quotes in particular are well-placed.

Then for the last four paragraphs the article describes a bit of Palmer's background and his political bid. The article ends with an interesting nutgraf about Palmer accusing the CIA of being behind political attacks on the Australian mining industry. This ending kind of hooks the reader into wanting to read more about the issue.

This article by Dominic Rushe in The Guardian talks about how Facebook's earnings were behind in the first three months of 2012 but are now back up.

There are a LOT of numbers in this article, especially for how short it is. I started to get lost and uninterested due to all of the numbers and stats and percentages.

The writer also only has one source, an analyst from somewhere who apparently knows all about Facebook's financial situation. Not knowing what kind of analyst Sam is or how he came by this knowledge, the quotes made me wonder if I could trust this source's information.

This article also seemed to fail in the way of saying why this was so important now, especially since it's in the news. What did the slip and change affect? The article failed to really give a reason for why it was there and why this change was important.

This article from the Star Tribune was written by Paul Walsh about the law enforcement crackdown on distracted driving in Minnesota that starts Thursday.

I thought this was a fairly well-rounded article. It stated the news right away in the lead. However, I thought the lead was a little confusing and I had to read it twice to get it right. It could've been stated in a simpler way.

The article also states just how much law enforcement will be increasing their awareness of distracted driving, which includes more than just texting.

The article adds just how much distracted driving contributes to vehicle crashes. Following is a summary of the law about texting which provides a clearer view of what exactly is illegal to do.

Then the article describes that it is illegal for people under 18 to even talk on the phone. This, in my opinion, was a little off-topic since they were talking about texting and distracted driving instead of what under-18-year-olds can't do.

Paul then put in a good quote from Donna Berger, director of Minnesota's Department of Public Safety's Office of Traffic Safety. However, I might have had that further up to provide a point of reference to my lead.

The article finishes with a random piece about how many citations there are without specific references and where this enforcement is getting its support and an ad campaign. The last part seemed a little thrown in and could've been better placed.

The Associated Press covered a story for The Guardian about the escalating tensions with North Korea over their "satellite launch."
The AP, among other news agencies, were allowed into the coastal Sohae satellite station to see the preparations for the launch and the satellite that is to be launched. They also received a tour of the command center.
As far as actual quotes, the press only recorded one source, Jang Myong Jin, who is the general manager of the launch facility.
The press mostly had to go off of what they could see with their eyes, which was merely the launch pad and command center, as well as hearsay from "experts" and "engineers."
The story was written as one that assumed the reader already had an idea of what they were talking about. They also threw in a few side notes near the bottom of the article that were a little confusing to a new reader like myself.
They mention the "now suspended" aid that Washington promised to North Korea in view of the tensions as well as a mission to find U.S. military personnel that have been there from the Korean War.
Lastly, they mention that the launch is supposed to take place three years after North Korea's last attempt to launch a satellite, which was condemned by the UN Council. However, they do not say the date or time of that event or give any other further sources.
The conclusion, in my opinion, is ambiguous.

This story was about diplomats from Iran and Turkey meeting to discuss a peace plan for Syria titled "Syria Crisis tops diplomatic agency at Turkey-Iran meeting, Arab League Summit, Clinton talks" in the Washington Post. The story was done by two reporters named Alice Fordham and Karen DeYoung.
Their first source was the Iranian state media which provided most of the basic info for the story. They sourced their next piece of information about the peace plan to the Iranian foreign minister who spoke to the journalists in Tehran.
They quoted Syran media quoting President al-Assad, followed by a scholarly source: a professor of international relations at Lehigh University. They used him again for a quote then back and forth between previous sources and wireless reports.
All in all, they got most of their sources from other media or sources not directly related to the people the story was about. They started out with facts about main story: the diplomatic meeting. But then they veered off to side stories about Turkey and Iran and humanitarian aid, clearly trying to provide context to their story.

This was a simple story in which I think that Mara Gottfried did a good job. The story is about a 20 year old woman who was walking on a path at Cherokee park and fell 30 feet down to a ledge where she was rescued by the St. Paul firemen. Apparently, she went and talked to the St. Paul fire department, in particular the fire marshal Steve Zaccard. He told her what happened and her entire story is based off of quotes from him. She doesn't have any other sources but for a story this small, I don't think that more sources would have been necessary. She had this story posted by later that night.

The woman was also fine but being treated for some serious fractures at Regions Hospital.