People are Innately Helpful!

Another rare occurrence in the newspaper! Today's article talked about people being nice, rather than people being corrupt, viscous, or worst of all dead. This article talked about a study showing people's inherent nature to be nice to one another. According to the article "the somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others."

The article did a good job keeping things simple, and reminded me a lot of the kind of writing style I would try to emulate if were writing a scientific article without using any scientific words. However, I think the article may have lost the attention of a lot of readers once it reached the second page. At the same time however, had a lot of very interesting information for a someone who is either very interested in the subject (me) or someone who is well-versed in this field. As a result if I were the editor of the newspaper I would continue to keep the length of the article, even if some readers wont be reading it the whole way through.

Article Tone

I think this article provided a lot of great information. Although there has been a lot of talk and analysis about Obama's new plan for troops in Afghanistan, very little has been said about the reactions from Afghanistan and Pakistan so far. I found this really interesting, especially when Obama addressed the Afghani people directly in his speech.

However, some things about this article seemed slightly more biased than usual. For example the first sentence on the front page of the website: "American diplomats scrambled to reassure the two countries at the center of President Obama’s war strategy that the U.S. would not cut and run." The use of the word scrambled seems a little unnecessary and biased to me. Thankfully this was fixed in the actual article and replaced with the word work.

The article had the tough job of analyzing a very subjective thing: the tone and feelings of the leaders and newspapers in Afghanistan. In my opinion they did a good job overall, but a couple of choice words worried me.

Learning!

I love it when I read an article in the paper that teaches me something. I know, I know, how very nerdy of me, but seriously- how often is it that you find an article about a subject you know very little about and you learn something? It's hard enough to do this in schools let alone the paper.

This article took advertising and taught me something new. It took a subject that I know nothing about and broke it down so I could understand. Not only that but it brought me up to speed on what is happening in the advertising world now. It used simple language and brought in names that everyone would know to give the reader something to relate to. (For example, we all know about the AT&T ads, but what we didn't know was that they were suing Verizon.) Anyway, this article was great in my opinion and I now know a whole lot more about the advertisement industry.

Reactions

Today's article talked about a piece of news that was received with many mixed feelings. The United States Preventive Services Task Force has declared that women should not start going in for mammograms until age 50.

Some women viewed this information as a relief. No longer would they have to go through the excruciating process that is breast cancer screening until they were 50. However, many other women were skeptical about this new statement. Why was it being released? How did the United States Preventive Services Task Force know what they were talking about?

This article did a good job taking a lot of different issues and presenting them in a non-biased way. In addition, it was about to show the confusion and emotion that came as a result of the announcement. I like how even though some of the quotes in the article didn't say anything specific, they were included to help show how women have reacted to the news. For example: "'Why all of a sudden this change?' said Karen Sun, 41, who was loading her groceries into her car here in Los Angeles.'“It feels out of nowhere.'" This seemingly casual exchange gave the article the ability to show the "peoples" reaction.

Fun article

This article was a fun and interesting read. Apparently, Facebook can save your life or at least it did in the case of Rodney Bradford. The article thankfully realized the humor in Facebook saving someone's life and made sure not to make the article too serious. They did, however, make sure to include all the information necessary for the article to be complete. It was not just a fluff piece, but it does include some sarcasm and humor throughout the paper.

Although the article shows the importance of Facebook in this case. It makes sure to keep the readers grounded by including information about how Facebook cannot be used as the only source to prove someone's innocence. Facebook was only used to help further prove Bradfords innocence. "The Facebook entry was just “icing on the cake,” since his client had other witnesses who provided an alibi."

Sniper Execution

For a girl who can vividly remember the "duck and cover" exercises that students had to perform in schools throughout the DC area, this article really hit home with me. I think the structure and writing style of the article were both great especially for a topic that is so old. Although the sniper was only executed today, it's been over seven years since his attacks.

The article does a good job of covering something that may not be in the forefront of everyone's minds anymore, and still making it significant. It didn't spend an overly long time talking about the events of the past, but gave just enough evidence of the crimes to remind readers why he was being sentenced to death today. In addition, he gave plenty of information on how his sentence was arranged and why it took place today without making it sound like a rule book instead of a newspaper article.

Abortion in Healthcare

Articles about the health care reform legislation have ranged in all sorts of subjects and most of them end up in the front page of the paper. However, today's health care article featured the abortion part of the legislation. In the version of legislation that the House passed, there would be a block on "the use of federal money for 'any health plan that includes coverage of abortion,' except in the case of rape or incest or if the life of a pregnant woman is in danger."

It was an interesting article that took a subtle look at the balance of power between Congress and the executive branch. Instead of directly talking about where the President was struggling to get Congress to cooperate, it stated the facts and showed an example- abortion. Even between the two branches of Congress there are differences. The abortion issue is only part of a number of changes that members of the Senate are hoping to make in the health care legislation.