Recently in Analysis Category

For my final blog, I chose a interactive feature that New York Times did by reporter by David Dunlap.

The interactive has four different pictures showing the construction of the new World Trade Center complex. The first picture shows the construction as of now and the interactive portion explains the portions that have been put in place and the details of those. The other three pictures are the construction models in 2014. The reporters analyze each part of the construction in great detail.

The computer skills necessary is to put voice to images and be able to change the image around when the mouse clicks.

I found the perfect article to use this week. It involves both the Muslim population and the disabled population. It's a BBC article.

The article talks about Muslims that are disabled that are finally making their trip to Mecca.

This article definitely shows how stereotypes can move past the barrier. It is a lot harder for the disabled to make their way to Mecca. The article is exactly what we are doing for our lab for this week.

The article shows how Muslim people can overcome disabilities. Every person explains how faith let them go pass their disabilities.

The story does this by giving snippets of personal stories of Muslim people.

The article that I used for this week's analysis was here.

A sport's article is a perfect article to use to analyze because it relies on numbers.

The reporter used numbers to explain the entire story of what occurred during the game Saturday. The reporter needs to understand each statistic of football in order to write a quality story that flows well.

The numbers would be overwhelming to a person that doesn't read sports articles regularly. But, for me, this article is not overwhelming at all with the amount of numbers used.

The reports used a little bit of basic math to calculate percentages and totals for statistics. This made the article gel more together because it put the article in perspective.

The source of the numbers come directly from the box score of the football game.

The obituary that I used for this week's analysis was for former manager for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers, Sparky Anderson.

In the obituary in the New York Times, the reporter used a lot of quotes of Anderson in former interviews and his Hall of Fame acceptance speech. Other than sourcing Anderson himself, the Times used a quote from a former pitching coaching with a interview done in 2000.

The lead was the standard obituary lead. The lead worked great because it explained who the manager was and why he was notable.

The obit differs from a resume because it gives the life history of the person and also gives multiple quotes.

The press release that I used for my analysis was found here.

The news report that I used was here.

The press release had quotes from both President Barack Obama and the man who was chosen to be the new Deputy National Security Advisor, Denis McDonough. The press release also explained the credentials that McDonough had to receive this honor. There was nothing else in the press release to gain information from. It was organized in a perfect fashion in for journalists to use to write an article from.

The news report that the AP White House Correspondent decided to use a lot of information that the press release had. The report explained what the promotion exactly is and who the person, McDonough, is. The writer of the report then used a quote of Obama from the press release. Finally, the report explain the credentials that the press release explained.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the multimedia segments that both Twin Cities newspapers have on their websites. It would seem like the newspapers would have similar sections for the multimedia portion of the website. I found it quite different.

First off, the Star Tribune is a lot more organized in how the webpage is put together. It has four features videos on the top bar and then the main story in the middle of the webpage. Surrounding that is numerous categories to choose from to find more videos. I found it out of the ordinary that you need to click on a different webpage to find different portions of multimedia besides the videos. The slide show section was weak and the previous slide show was from the middle of September.

The Star Tribune corresponds well with the news stories. The videos have little blurbs when you click on them, and the same goes for most multimedia sections of website. The writing is very subject orientated so the reader can find exactly what they are looking for.

When you go to the Pioneer Press' multimedia section, you can tell they recently put the webpage together. It relies on photography to be the strong part of the multimedia. The reader has to search in-depth to find exactly what he or she is looking for. The video section is scarce and the podcast portion is still "coming soon." The same goes for interactives.

There is few, if any, writing for the multimedia section of the website.

I prefer the Star Tribune's multimedia by a long shot.

The news story that I chose to use for this week is the recap to the Green Bay Packers game from the Associated Press. Since the game happened Sunday, I wasn't able to check the second day story (tomorrow, Monday). The Associated Press had its updated article a little over an hour after the first article was originally posted. The leads for the articles were completely different.

The lead from the first article was mixed through the first three paragraphs of the second article. The original article only talked about the details of the overtime portion of the ballgame. It gave few concretes stats and was very chronological. The second story told the reader everything he or she needed to know about the contest. The secondary story was littered with quotes from players and coaches.

The second story also revealed the severity of all the injuries that happened during the game. This could not have been done in the original article because the press conference was yet to happen.

The thing from the secondary article that I thought should have been included in the original were some of the stats from the star players of the game.

The article that I chose to analyze this week is the ESPN article I used for my notable section of my blog. The article contains the match report and write-up of the Chelsea versus Arsenal game on Sunday.

The article started off by having a strong lead and identifying all points to the article that it needs. It then went in describing the goals that Chelsea had during the game in detail. The report summarized the elements of the game by blending it into the descriptions of the goals. The reporter then had at least 10 paragraphs of describing every few minutes of the game.

The reporter ordered the information in chronological order. Even though it is in that order, the amount of detail the reporter uses and also the random facts about the game, it does not seem to feel that way to the reader. It is effective because the reader gets to image the whole game in his mind.

The article could have been written differently, and it would have been a lot more concise. I personally like the way the reporter wrote this because it was a game that I was hoping to watch but didn't get a chance. I think most of the readers of the article feel the same way.

The story that I chose to analysis this week was the CNN article announcing the donation that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg would be giving to the Newark Public School district.

I chose this article because CNN is known for having its article full of other sources and CNN formats well-organized articles. In this article, the reporter did not cite any other newscasts. The reporter found multiple people to attribute in his article.

The article's attributions are scattered all throughout the article. By having the attributions mapped out correctly, the flow of the article is amazing. It's so easy to read. The attributions are from multiple people including multiple CEOs and Zuckerberg himself.

I find that having attributions in an article, it allows the article to have certain legitimacy and makes the story effective.

Analysis: Leads
By Cody Steger

When the reporter doesn't have a lot of information to work with when creating the article, it is very important to let the information out to the public step by step. A story done by the Star Tribune is a great example of a strong lead.

The article was informing the public of a death of a local pedestrian. A car hit her early morning Sunday but that information by itself is all a reporter needs to create a lead that both hooks and informs the reader. As you continue through the article, the reader gets the specifics and the article is short and to the point.

The news elements that were used in the lead were the who, the what, and the where. A lead needs all three of these in order to be successful. Each of the w's need to broad enough in order to keep the specifics ready for upcoming paragraphs.

One item in the lead that might not be needed was where the woman who died was from. It could be used as an additional paragraph later in the article.