JOU Articles: week 4

Article 1: Facebook's Doppelganger Week is Viral Groupthink. Written by Dan Fletcher from Time Magazine on February 6, 2010.

This article is a little different from what I usually read because it is more light-hearted. It definitely caught my attention, though, because it's about something that I can directly relate to, which I liked. I mean, I have seen plenty of my friends change their profile pictures to a celebrity "look-alike" and I assumed there were others doing it, too. I really like the way this article was written because it was more like an opinion column than a source-based informational article. It was funny, too, and had a great ending sentence. All in all it was just a fun story about something that has become very popular on a social website.

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Article 2: Toyota Has Pattern of Slow Response on Safety Issues. Written by James Kanter, Micheline Maynard and Hiroko Tabuchi in the NY Times on February 6, 2010.

I chose this story because it's one of the few stories I have seen repeated often in the past week or so. The Toyota safety recalls have been all over both local and national news channels, so I thought I'd read more about the problem's continuation and see how similar their stance was. This story addressed all the problems Toyota had addressed (or not addressed) and it was really good because of how fair the coverage was. The writers got quotes from both sides of the issue, which is of course very important. I read the statements of Toyota executives, as well as the transportation secretary who was less than pleased with Toyota overall. The article itself was a little long, but I guess I can't complain since it was full of good information. It just got a little redundant in some parts and maybe it could have been edited down.

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Article 3: UF Will No Longer Sanction Student Trips to Haiti. Written by Nathan Crabbe, published in the Gainesville Sun on February 5th, 2010.

Amidst all the Haiti news we have been bombarded with over the past month, this article caught my eye because it was slightly different. The Haiti issue itself isn't new, but it was interesting to see it from a more selfish point of view because it directly affects something in the area that I live. This story was short, but it managed to have a good source as well as a quote from a graduate student who wants to go back to Haiti. I'm actually glad it was short, because unlike the article I read previously, it kept my attention and told me what I needed to know without evolving into this huge commitment. I know that's extremely lazy of me, but unless the article is AWESOME, I don't want to read it for very long.

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Article 4: Toyota to Announce Action Soon for Prius Hybrids. Written by Kelly Olsen of the Associated Press on February 7, 2010.

Another Toyota article, no WAY! Now I can write a little bit of comparison between the last Toyota article I posted and this one. This one, unlike the previous, focuses more on Toyota's specific announcement made to deal with the Prius hybrid's breaking problems instead of Toyota's general history of blunders. Also, instead of considering a full recall, however, the executives ask for Prius owners to simply bring in their cars for repairs. Of course, both Toyota articles have a negative twist, but how could it not? They're both about manufacturing problems, so you can't really have a happy-go-lucky story about brake pedal failure. As a journalist, I don't know what I would have done differently to spice up a beaten-to-death story like this, but that's what should've been done.

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