Author Archives: belter13

This infographic, obtained from dailyinfographic.com caught my eye because it sheds light on something that we all know, large amounts of sugar are bad for you. It gives the reader 14 interesting facts about sugar presented in an eye catching visual way. I think that giving people pictures of how much they consume or what the physical changes your body goes through with an abundance of sugar is more effective than a written article.

http://dailyinfographic.com/14-facts-about-sugar-infographic/sugar 

When deciding upon which news website I should analyze, I did a Google search for news. However, many of the websites that popped up immediately were cites such as CNN and FOX, which we had already put a little bit of thought into in class. Therefore, I chose to analyze a news website that I had never heard of before, it is called “World Net Daily.”

Shortly after reading the headlines of some of the articles that this website, I came to the conclusion that it is very politically conservative. Headlines such as, “Leaked! Obama’s Specific, Devastating 2nd Term Plans,” or, “Obama Eligibility odds: 1 in 62.5 Quintillion” were bolded on the virtual front page. Exclusives such as, “Gloves off! Obama scorched as ‘serial liar’” with the caption, “‘lies just flow out of his mouth as naturally as a baby’s cries.”’ The people that are in charge of this newspaper are obviously not fans of the Democratic Party, especially considering that they don’t have any negative articles about the Republican Party in the political news.

Also, in the “World” section of the site, there is an article that is called, “Ralph Nader: Obama’s a ‘war criminal.’” This piece is showing that even the previous Third- Party candidate agrees more with the Right side when it comes to this upcoming election. Another article in the “U.S.” section of the site was titled, “Charge: Media ‘Rigging’ Presidential Election” with the caption, “Conservatives call out ‘deliberate and unmistakable leftist agenda’ this election cycle.” Mainly based off of the shear number of articles on the virtual front page of this news website that have a clear bias, I would say that it is politically conservative.

A selection from “In Fact,” “The Suppressed Tobacco Story” written by George Seldes was an article that was written in a very interesting way. The lede to this article is very short, in a way, indicating the way that your life will be if you smoke cigarets. Because this statement is so short, it makes the reader want to read on to see the facts that either prove this statement, or disprove it. In the book “Journalistic Writing,” Robert M. Knight states, “shorter ledes usually have more impact.” on page 54.

I think that this was a unique way to write a story. Because the author didn’t have many first hand information, Seldes used quotes and data from other articles to supplement direct quotes from people he interviewed personally. I think that in this case, it was completely ethical of Seldes to do this, because it would be silly and time consuming to get data of his own when someone has obviously put a lot of time and effort into getting it already. Also, he is taking direct quotes from something that a credible source has written.

The data is able to make a large impression on the reader in a very short amount of time. It catches people’s attention and shocks them into reading the article to learn where the numbers are coming from. I think that this is a very fact- filled article, and it gives the reader a lot of information on the side effects of smoking tobacco.

When reading the lede to Nellie Bly’s article, “Choking and Beating Patients,” I at first thought that it was relatively boring. However, because it didn’t give very much information, it made me want to read on to see where the story was going. I asked myself questions such as, who are the attendants? And, why was it so cold?

I felt as though this article was more of a story, and the quotes used in it were more of a dialogue. I did find the quotes to be very from very credible sources and many of them were very powerful. I really enjoyed that even though they were so simple, they were packed full of emotion.

The article was very concise, it got to the point and was very direct. In my opinion, the way that the author wrote this story was very intentional. The topic was very serious and is meant to open the readers eyes to something that most people never experience.