I have to admit that reading publications such as the New York Times and the Guardian is a completely new activity for me. As a nineteen year old in 2010, I usually find myself getting caught up in the menial articles displayed on my google news feed. So, I plan to use this blog to stay informed on some current events, which is pretty exciting.
In The Guardian, there was an article titled “Iranian court jails human rights activist for waging war against God” by Peter Walker that was particularly interesting. The piece was about the arrest of Shiva Nazar Ahari, a 26 year old activist an journalist working in Tehran. I really enjoyed Walkers style of writing, but what I appreciated most was the kicker. After and concise and informative article, he ended the piece with “The opposition insist that June's election was rigged. Authorities in Iran deny the claims and have blamed foreign countries for fomenting sedition.” (Walker) Definitely memorable.
A random side note: After a reading of the New York Times, there was an article I found particularly interesting. It was the front page, titled “Cuba Resets the Revolution” by Marc Lacy. The article was about Cuba’s slow transition from communism to a more capitalistic society. Although the content of the piece was relevant and extremely interesting, it got me thinking about something else… the brief shelf life of what we call hard news. I potentially could have made this observation from another piece, but this one stuck out more than the others. For instance, the article begins with an anecdotal lede about the lack of advertising in the Cuban landscape; however, the bulk of the report is an analysis of an announcement made by the Cuban government last week. I noticed this in many other articles, as well as when I was trying to find topics to write about for class. Essentially, there is a minute window of when breaking news becomes soft news. Although the as my knowledge of journalism expands, I’m starting to notice that the lines have been blurred between hard and soft news. For instance, the Cuban article does not have a traditional lede per say, but still uses other methods found in hard news such as the inverted pyramid and the who what where when why style of reporting. Also, this article is not titled “what to avoid in a new laptop”, it is a political piece exposing a global topic with quotations and evaluation from experts. So my question is can hard and soft news exist together?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/19/iranian-court-jails-human-rights-activist
excellent
ReplyDelete