Eric Dahl's Blog of Blogs

Cheap Vegas Hotels…That’s it… (Clip file 10/15)

edahl — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:35:02 +0000

I figured we are all leaving UMass in a few days so why not look at some travel articles. These features usually, I feel, are big ol’ advertisements for hotels, countries, and various other travel destinations. Well, on USA today I found a mediocre example of an article. “Las Vegas hotel rates hit rock bottom” is an article that tells the reader nothing interesting besides the fact that there are in fact cheap hotel rooms in Vegas. The article lacked organization. When listing prices it kind of just threw all the numbers together. When reading it I felt that it just didn’t have the same feel that other articles have. The journalistic touch that makes a report into a story. I was all around bored. When I get bored I tend to look around the article for perhaps another article about a similar topic. Well, this time I looked and all I found were the major stories of the day. Almost every other online paper I’ve read has provided at least one similar story. Not this one. Well, it did provide two stories about Vegas but nothing too important. For some reason it recommended that if I liked this article I might want to read about how in a raid 5 Pakistan Detainees were freed. What the hell? That literally had nothing to do with what I was reading about. This article may have been about rates but it was too full of numbers. When I read an article I like to read words not look at a math problem. Sometimes you go looking for a travel article and end up with a big Ad that you just don’t want to read it. I’m sorry USAtoday.com but you have failed me this day.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2009-12-10-las-vegas-rates_N.htm

Jailbreak in the Philippines (Clip file 9/15)

edahl — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:06:44 +0000

Every once in a while there comes a long a story that I love to read and learn a lot from. On BBC.co.uk I found a story about a jailbreak in the Philippines that resulted in 31 military detainees being freed. This story was yet another example of why I like to read articles written by the BBC. It started with a very short video showing the hole that the prisoners crawled through to freedom. I liked how they provided that for the same reason I mentioned in my earlier piece about the Market in Pakistan. It provides a bit of visual representation about the topic and allows the reader to picture in their head what was happening. This is different than how the NYtimes usually sets these stories up because the New York Times tends to provide a video on the sidebar or at the end of an article so that the reader gets a little bit more info than just reading the article rather than introducing the article with video. Another thing that I enjoyed about this article was the fact that on the side bar there were links to other stories that were either about the Jailbreak in the Philippines or profiles on the Philippines as a country.

(They even provide a timeline that I decided to click on. This was a very very cool interactive feature. It provided bits of information on the Philippines from 1542 all the way to this Jailbreak today. Along the way there are pictures linked to stories. This BBC “Country Profile” is perhaps my favorite example of New Media in action. You can literally look up any country in the world and get info on any major event that has happened since the founding of said country.)

Back to the article: There was one small thing that I did not particularly like about the article. This was the map. Usually the map has some sort of explanation but this one was straight up confusing. I first thought that maybe these places marked are where the prisoners were from. I later found out after some research that the points marked on the map were areas where conflict was present in the country. Maybe a little comment on the bottom saying that would be nice so that I wouldn’t have to leave the website to figure out what I was looking at.

ARTICLE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8410364.stm

TIMELINE FEATURE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1264117.stm

Market Blaze in Pakistan (Clip file 8/15)

edahl — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:11:53 +0000

BBC.co.uk I love this website. It’s always full of interesting stories about a plethora of topics across the world. Recently I have been following the middle east section of the website and came across a breaking news story about two bomb blasts that went off today in Pakistan. The page began with a video of a news report done by a local channel. I thought this was a nice touch that not many stories provide. Usually if there is a video attached to a story it is usually near the middle or an end to the story perhaps suggesting that the reader watch them after they have read the article. But this story put it first suggesting that you enlighten yourself about what happened before reading the details that the writer provides. I liked how the article itself began with “Two bomb blasts have ripped through a busy markey in the centre of Pakistan’s second largest city, Lahore, killing at least 30 people, police and medics say” it’s short sweet and to the point. It tells the reader a quick fact that will keep their attention and it makes you want to read on. The writer begins by telling the reader some facts about what happened then moved into the blast itself. I’ve noticed this with a lot of BBC articles. They tend to separate their stories into sections perhaps to clear things up for the reader. I liked how the article provided a map because that just gave me an idea of where the incident happened. A cool thing that I saw that was different than many articles have is at the end the article says “Were you in Lahore? Comments? Video?” I thought that was very cool because in this new world of extremely fast technology its possible for anyone to upload whatever video they want relating to the article. The article was made up with a lot of quotes which got almost a little too annoying after a while which was the only downfall of this article. The rest made a lot of sense, was interesting, and well written. I looked into many more stories relating to the middle east after reading this article because they inspired me to read on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8400204.stm

Records making a comeback? (Clip file 7/15)

edahl — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:34:59 +0000

Another day, another clip file. This time I went on nytimes.com to find a rather interesting feature story. It was all about the resurgence of vinyl records. I thought that the article had a peculiar lead: “At a glance, the far corner of the main floor of J&R Music looks familiar to anybody old enough to have scratched a record by accident. There are cardboard boxes filled with albums by the likes of Miles Davis and the Beach Boys that could be stacked in any musty attic in America.” It doesn’t really tell you much which is a problem however I chose to continue reading because of the straightforward title “Beyond Nostalgia, Vinyl Albums and Turntables Are Returning”. I knew that this is what the article was eventually going to be about (hopefully) so I read on. The article stated some surprising facts such as listing several modern artists that are now releasing albums not only on CD but also on vinyl. The article does make a note that the turntables that these artists are being played on are much more advanced than the older ones. The article itself may be a huge advertisement for new turntables even. It did make it to the home page of the times for some reason. The writer drops names like crazy in particular when he notes the disappearance of large stores from Manhattan he says “One exception has been Best Buy, a national electronics chain that recently opened its sixth store in Manhattan.” for most of the rest of the article he just keeps talking about how Best Buy has this, Best Buy has that. Eventually he does make his point again with the new vinyl records but I feel that It comes too late in the article and I lost interest before ending. This article could have been vastly improved if he stuck to one point instead of getting distracted with what stores actually sell these records that are coming back into the new age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/nyregion/07vinyl.html?_r=1&hp

21 for 21 (Clip file 6/15)

edahl — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:35:22 +0000

I figured what better to do on a sober Saturday night than to write a commentary on an article about binge drinking. It was easy enough to find since Binge drinking is a serious problem in America and bad things are always happening because of it. I came across this article about the ritual of 21 shots for one’s 21st birthday. I believed that the main focus of the article was about the hidden dangers of binge drinking and how common consuming more than 21 shots for a birthday is however it covered a wide range of topics all relating to the over consumption of alcohol. The article started off with a quick “surprising” fact that people tend to drink a lot on their 21st birthday. This did not really surprise me but I figured if, as a reader, I was unaware of this activity it would have definitely grabbed my interest. I liked how MSNBC provided a picture of a victim of drinking and a video related to that story. I felt that It provided a way for the reader to learn a lot more about the problem and learn one person’s personal issue with binge drinking. In the early part of this article I noticed a large amount of statistics and numbers when the writer noted the research done by the University of Missouri. I liked how the writer began with this and then moved into ways that researchers are trying to curb students drinking to the extreme. After describing the research the writer turns the article into more of a health paper for a bit with a focus on alcohol poisoning. A nice touch to this topic is when the writer threw in a story about one person who was killed because of alcohol poisoning. It added emotion to the story without the writer expressing any of her actual emotion. I thought that was an example of good journalism. This article was a bit long and covered many topics so it could not go into extreme detail about any one but it managed to do a good job. It provided further reading with a shout out to a group attempting to combat excessive drinking providing both a link to the website and another story with a similar topic. In all, a well written article that I feel could have been part of a series covering each point made in more detail, but then again, that’s what all the stories surrounding the article and after it are for.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24004376/#storyContinued

Facebook Feature Story (Clip file 5/15)

edahl — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:22:01 +0000

I figured I’d take a break from commenting on hard news and switch to a nice feature story. One that really caught my eye today was “Facebook’s Killer Feature: The Mutual Friends List”. I found this article in the “Bits” section of NYtimes.com which is a blogging section that focuses on businesses, technology, and innovation. The first thing I liked about the article was that It was an opinion piece. It was nice to read the writer’s view on this major section of Facebook. I enjoyed how he gave both positive and negative arguments relating to the list qualifying is crucial to me enjoying an article since I like to look at both sides of a point. Another thing that I liked about the article was how the writer gave examples of Facebook competitors such as Linked in or Twitter and compares the idea of mutual friends. It was a very casually written article which may be good or bad. Good, because it made it easy for me to read and to follow but bad because it lacked some of the professionalism that other articles possess. This writer may almost be a bit too happy about the idea of mutual friends on Facebook. He states that he spent an hour with a columnist from Wired and compared who the both of them were friends with. Although a little story like this was a nice touch to the article. There’s not much that too newsworthy in this story, he mentions how Facebook just recently reached 350 million users which is crazy in itself so the idea of mutual friends is known by a large audience and I personally feel that the article may appeal to those who don’t have profiles and maybe advertises Facebook a little to them. A good article though, it kept my interest and was entertaining. Even though it was about a topic that many know about it still served as an Ad for Facebook. Come to think of it just by writing this blog I too am advertising Facebook. Who knew? =)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/facebooks-killer-feature-the-mutual-friends-list/?hp

Never thought I’d find an article I truly hate (Clip File 4/15)

edahl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:15:11 +0000

So….NPR. I don’t normally go their to find articles but maybe listen to some cartalk or some other show. But I figured why not get a little variety in where I get my news for this clip file project. Boy did I look on the wrong day. “Is There Gold In Them There ‘Grillz’?” is perhaps one of the worst articles that I have ever read. Not to bash anyone but Youth Radio should have higher standards than this. First of all using a picture of Lil Wayne for the article made me think that the article might be about him. But no. The article was in fact about the person writing it. This is just the start of my confusion as I read on. The quotes were simply stupid. That was another annoying part of the article. They made little sense and were written in Ebonics (great journalism there). The article was almost too fast paced for me. It jumped around, moved between people who it was quoting. Even as I write this I don’t know where to go since the article was really this bad.

“Is this your first time seeing a grill?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ross replied.

Who quotes like that? It may be a feature story but should each of these tiny quotes really matter? They can write that in one short sentence. Now I know that this article was written for a younger audience, but still. That doesn’t mean it can be this terribly written. Now I understand what the article is talking about, but it is just all over the place and really irritates me. The writer goes on for about half a page talking about how his grill was real gold and his friend’s was fake. Why? Just why? What a waste of a page. I feel I’m starting to rant so I’m going to cut this short. Even though this article was written for younger readers it was still horrible. The idea of the story had some potential “grills in society” but it didn’t deliver. It turned into the writer describing one event for way too long. As my title suggests I never thought that I’d find an article I truly hate. =)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120986492

American Situation from a Foreign Perspective (Clip File 3/15)

edahl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:57:27 +0000

It’s always interesting to read an article about a developing situation in a foreign country from an American perspective. This week I decided to search for the opposite. I wanted to read an article written over seas about a problem or event happening in the United States. I began my search at my personal favorite place for world news BBC.co.uk. It didn’t take long to find something interesting and recent. I discovered an article pertaining to the 30,00 US troops that President Obama is planning on planting into Afghanistan in early 2010. First of all, this is a very important article but secondly I enjoyed how the writer wrote what the allies of the coalition in the middle east. For some time now I at least haven’t heard much about what other countries are doing about the problems in Afghanistan and Iraq but just what America has been doing. The article focuses heavily on what other countries are doing about the surge rather than the US. I feel that if this article was being written in the New York Times or some other national paper that it would focus on perhaps statistics on the troops or what the actual plan is. This article merely mentions the surge then moves on to what each country in the coalition is doing about it or in France’s case not doing about it. I liked how this article was 3 in one. It made the reader aware of United States action, it then gave an idea of what the rest of the coalition is doing about it, then moved on to France in particular and their refusal to help. The article was also full of quotes and paraphrasing. This was both a good thing and a nuisance to me. Sure I wanted to learn about what presidents or other leaders are saying but It became too much near the end. The article also ended on an international note stating what several countries are doing about the surge and their own plans for troop increases that, I felt, was a nice way to end the article because it made the reader want to do their own research on what these countries are doing. All in all this was a very interesting article and I feel I accomplished my mission of finding an article about the US written in a foreign country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8388939.stm

Smokey Thursday (300 Word Feature Story)

edahl — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:56:31 +0000

Another popular smoking spot, a group of unknown faces standing in a circle, cautiously puffing away. There is no better place to meet an interesting stranger.

“What it is” a smoker’s greeting to a curious bystander who meandered into the woods to join the group. Perhaps smokers are not as bad as kids are told and have simply been given a bad reputation from society. Made out to be low lives who spend their time in front of a TV rather than doing actual work.

Perhaps hidden under that veil of smoke lies a person with a background, with a story, with a life.

Robert Ward, 19, of Boston, Massachusetts is an example of a person beneath the smoke.

Rob, born and raised in Boston has lived an exciting, interesting, life. One that many would be envious of.

He has been smoking Marijuana since he was 14 and doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

He doesn’t mind the money he spends for a good time, which has exceeded, to this date, over $5000.

His life however, does not fit the “pothead” label.

He went to Boston Latin school, the oldest public High School in America.

He spent a year in Italy, mastered the language, and adopted the culture.

He’s joined several college clubs.

He scored an 1830 on the SAT’s.

Perhaps the most interesting part of his life is that he managed to overcome the smoker’s stereotype and get into college.

“I’m the only one to leave Boston for college out of all my friends”

And yet he takes some time out of his day, almost everyday, to enjoy a few hours with new friends and complete strangers in the best way he knows how.

Its just so fascinating, who or what you might find while walking around in the woods one smokey Thursday night.

Irish and French Soccer. What happened??? (Clip file 2/15)

edahl — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:05:18 +0000

While paroozing the various websites relating to news New York Times, Talking Points Memo, and CNN I came across the story about the French and Irish soccer match from Wednesday. Now I’ve been a soccer fan for a long time and nothing annoys me more than a bad call which makes the whole game change for the worse. I’ve seen about 30 different stories all about the game that sparked major outrage among soccer fans everywhere. The story I chose to write about is the one I found on CNN.com “Ireland outraged after French handball nixes World Cup hopes” The title itself is enough to grab the readers attention and make them want to read on. The lead only helps this, it’s short, sweet, and to the point “Soccer star Thierry Henry became the villain of Dublin on Wednesday.” One of the more interesting parts to the article is when they quote Henry who was the one responsible for the two handballs that were not seen by the referee. He actually admits to committed the penalty which surprised me. I love when a writer can capture the emotion felt by those affected by the game and funnel it to the reader. After finishing the article I too felt a bit of anger towards the French national team. Another thing that I liked about the article is that it referenced other instances of cheating not caught by officials in various other matches. I always like when an article references the past because I feel that it helps their argument and provokes the reader into learning more about the other situations or instances. It’s also great to see that this is a popular story for blogging about, I have already found several some expressing personal rage others simply commenting on happened. All in all this was a fantastic article. It was well written, sparked the same anger in me that many Irish are feeling now, and made me want to follow up with the story to find out what is happening if the game will be looked at especially since the player actually admits to cheating. Good stuff, lets see if any other crazy things happen this year in the World Cup Qualifiers or next year in the World Cup itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/19/henry.handball.world.cup/index.html