JOU Articles: week 8

Article 1: Tax Soda, Pizza to Cut Obesity, Researchers Say. Written by Julie Steenhuysen of Reuters on March 8, 2010.

I picked this article out of the sheer apparent ridiculousness of the title of this article. I mean, really? A soda tax and pizza tax will single-handedly reduce American obesity? I know this isn't an article summary, but that's just my immediate thoughts on it. Upon reading the article, though, I discovered how logical and well-sourced it was. The arguments of the scientists backing this claim were very organized in their presentation, and the article had me believing in this tax increase by the last word. It wasn't very long, but it managed to fit all important points without getting boring, which is always a plus for me. Technically, the article was arranged with extremely short paragraphs (some only one sentence long), so that sometimes made me feel like I was scattered through a bunch of unrelated sentences. That would be the only major negative, though.

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Article 2: Professor Suspended After Joke About Killing Students on Facebook. Written by Dalia Fahmy on March 3, 2010.

I honestly didn't like the organization of this article at all. To start, the title already read funny to me because of the ordering of the words. The title, upon first reading it, may give the impression that humans can actually be killed ON facebook. The words "on Facebook" should be placed after "Joke" in the title to make more sense. It just reeked of unprofessionalism and it already gave me a negative attitude towards the story before I even read it. The itself was okay, considering Fahmy got a quote from the actual teacher and everything, but the other thing that didn't fly with me was the video attached right in the forefront of the webpage. It's a video about a professor, all right, but it's completely unrelated to the story it's placed in. It's just about some other professor who actually DID kill some people. Luckily I had heard the story from the video prior to reading this article, but it could be extremely misleading if you hadn't-- the lady who got suspended didn't actually kill anyone, and that's a crucial mixup.

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Article 3: After Daughter Misses Half the School Year, 'Lonely' Mom Jailed in Tampa. Written by Kim Wilmath of the St. Pete Times on March 8, 2010.

This was an extremely strange and unheard of story that was definitely newsworthy because it fit squarely under the "Odd" category. Very rarely do you see kids missing multiple school days staying home because they're so attached to their parent, and vice versa. Like the other story I read earlier in this journal entry, some of the paragraphs were so small that each individual sentence was split into a new "topic". It was really boring to follow in that aspect because once again I was pulled in a ton of different directions. Hasn't anyone ever heard of a transition? Anyway, it was interesting enough and there was even a picture (a visual aid I suppose) of the woman currently in jail, which was nice.

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Article 4: Oscars' Big Mysteries Explained. Written by Mike Ryan on the Yahoo!Movies webpage on March 8, 2010.

Even though this article wasn't a traditional informational news piece from a respectable newspaper, it very quickly captured my interest. I'm trying to include all the different forms of journalism in my blog (because even a blogger can be considered a journalist!) so that I get a good, diversified set of articles. Since I harbor a small, secret sweet spot for celebrity gossip (don't get the wrong idea, it certainly doesn't consume me), I wanted to see what kinds of 'mysteries' went unsolved from the year's biggest award ceremony. To put it bluntly, this was a very enjoyable article. I laughed, learned, and was generally incredulous as I read each issue Mr. Ryan addressed in his Yahoo post. There was a slight lack of what could be considered a reliable source or quotes, but it doesn't really bother me since it's just speculative gossip. I honestly won't be upset if every iota of this article isn't 100% true. Unethical? Maybe. But since I'm the reader I don't have to be ethical.

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