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With all due respect for Donald's desire to praise the boy who gave his life trying to save others, the article itself is written exactly as it should have been: the facts of what happened.
The fact that the story also included details of another fire betray nothing of the writer's feelings about the youth or his heroic actions. Rather, the writer probably had a very limited space within which to place these two breaking stories, and so the facts about the second fire were placed at the end of the first story.
I will tell you that a holiday editions of newspapers (and the few days thereafter) are *tough* to fit in breaking news. Likewise, it's tough to get information from the proper emergency officials during the holidays because they're all on holiday with their own families.
I *do* think it would be good of that paper to do a larger feature article on the teen himself. Interview his family and friends. Attend the funeral. Get to know who he was. Run the piece in the Lifestyles section. Make him a hometown hero/household name in his community.
But, again, the news report was exactly what it should have been.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday December 27, @09:13PM EST (#2)
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1) The space contained articles written by two different reporters.
2) space is not an issue with the net.
3) How long does it take to create a second headline.
4) You can "do" "facts" in a table.
Who
What
When
Where
How
you don't need prose to list the facts.
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space is not an issue with the net.
Doesn't matter. It is an issue in print. And what goes in print goes on the net. This story was, obviously, intended for print first. If the Toronto Daily Star is a Web-only publication, I'll be damned surprised.
As for the rest of your comments, "Who, What, When Where, How" are always written in story form for news. It's called the "inverted pyramid." Who is going to read a newspaper full of tables?
As for No. 1. How do you know it contained articles written by two different reporters? How do you know that both reporters didn't work on the same piece? Happens all the time in newspaper. One reporters gets part of the story, another reporter gets the other.
Also, no editor wants to write a headline for a two-paragraph story. The headline would be larger than the story is, and that's a BIG layout no-no.
Question No. 3 is answered by the answer to Question No. 2. There may not have been space for another story. And extra headlines take up even MORE room.
You're reading much more into that story than is really there. I work in newspaper, friend. I know what I'm talking about.
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by Anonymous User on Friday December 28, @10:54AM EST (#4)
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It's funny, you know, that this sort of confusion occurs. We keep reading biased stories and selective reporting, and when we really do read an objective news article that just reports the facts, we still see shadows of spin. I do it, so, apparently, did this AU.
It's gotten to the point where I trust no single news source. I hear the news on CNN or PMS-NBC (as Rush calls it), I read it on the web, I listen to talk radio. And I try to distill it all down to the facts so that I can take an informed position.
I find, in all this, that what's REALLY interesting is not what's reported or how, because you can see most of the spin there. No, what's really interesting is what's NOT reported.
Frank H
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No, what's really interesting is what's NOT reported.
Yep. I told the story recently in a chat session about how I was writing a story on the rape of a man by a gang of other men in broad daylight (I was on the police beat at a daily paper at the time).
The gang of men pinned the victim down, stripped off his clothes (in broad daylight in public) and inserted a copper wire into his urethra.
When my editor (at that time, a woman with misandrist tendencies) found out what I was writing about, she snatched the police report from my desk, tore it up, and threw it in the trash.
"We're NOT printing that," she screamed. Nevermind that we usually print stories of rape (when the victims are female) at the top of the fold with HUGE headlines. And most of those stories were just as graphic.
Anyway, the story did not run in our paper, but DID run in our competition. The competition, like us, has a policy of not naming the victims of rape. Even so, this poor guy's name was right there, in black and white.
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In reading the responses to my post I would like to add this.
I have been experiencing mild confusion and short term memory disfunction since my shrink added a new medication to my regimen in September; it "has greatly" helped with the PTSD.
Maybe I got spooked by the 80 Character limit on suggestions.
It was indeed the matter-of-fact treatment of the event that had me wondering if such treatment would have been given to the hero had the hero been an adolescent female.
I have by and large chosen your contributions to respond to, never imagining until now that I may have put you in a difficult position or compeled to you respond on issues you felt were selfevident to an informed or educated person.
I should have made it clear that my point was how deeply imbeded are our assumptions about gender roles.
Can someone find some articles about an adolescent female repeatedly entering a buring building to save others until she herself was lost?
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by Anonymous User on Friday December 28, @10:28PM EST (#7)
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Well, regarding your question of whether a female running repeatedly into a burning building to save the inhabitants would be given the same non-chalant treatment, allow me to infer that what you suggest is that she would, indeed, receive MUCH more than matter of fact treatment. If I've properly put those words in your mouth, then I must say that I agree with you. The female hero would be lauded by every lib/fem publication in the land. (If I've misrepresented your point, then I apologize.)
But I submit that any given publication should not treat the hero any differently simply because of gender.
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But I submit that any given publication should not treat the hero any differently simply because of gender.
Absolutely correct.
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It was indeed the matter-of-fact treatment of the event that had me wondering if such treatment would have been given to the hero had the hero been an adolescent female.
Don't sweat it, man. I'm not beating up on you. I just wanted people to know that--in the world of (heh) ethical journalism--"just the facts" is the way the news is supposed to be reported.
ow, if it were a female hero, you're right, she *might* get different treatment by the largely feminist press. I would certainly hope not unless, as I suggested, it were in a feature/Lifestyles article and *not* a news story.
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I'm trying to find some even ground for me here. I just have to get used to elucidating what bothers me about the articles I submit.
But "you" (ustedes,vosotros) got it.
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