journal 4

Quotes

For this weeks journal I chose an article from The Chicago Tribune called “More Youngsters Having Unsafe Sex: Global Study”, and from The Guardian called “Striking California Nurses Return to Work as Patient Death Raises Tension”. Both of the articles have extremely different subject matter and use quotes in very different ways. Both articles use quotes from only two people. In one situation I think it worked, however in the other story the lack of quotes made the article less less successful.

The article in The Guardian was about a death that occurred during the nurses strike in Oakland CA. when a fill in nurse accidentally over-dosed a patient. The nurses were only supposed to be on strike for 24 hours but when they attempted to come back to the hospital after the 24 hour period security guards turned them away. During this time the nurses were being turned away the patient died. The quotes came from Dr. Steve Brian head of medical affairs, and one of the nurses who was boycotting and then was denied access to the hospital upon returning. I didn’t feel there was a person to really make sense of the news. One quote was defending the hospitals decisions to keep the nurses away, the other was blaming the hospital for the death of the patient. The article never explained a clear reason for turning the nurses away when they tried to return and the quotes just seemed to point fingers at the opposing sides. I also thought it would have been nice to have a quote from Ming’s family, the women who died. 

     The other article was about a recent survey that the World Contraceptive Day Committee sent all over the world to find out if adolescents were practicing safe sex. The answers were pretty astonishing in that the number of young people who are not practicing safe sex has risen tremendously. This article only took quotes from two people as well, but I thought it was much more successful than the article prior. The quotes came from a member of World Contraceptive Day, as well as a woman who works for Planned Parenthood. The woman working for Planned Parenthood helped to make sense of the news as she deals with adolescents on a day-to-day basis that aren’t practicing safe sex, and she sees the consequence of this problem. Although it may have been nice to hear from some young people who admittedly don’t use contraception when having intercourse ,I didn’t think it was necessary in this article because the information that they accumulated and discussed in their surveys was from the point of view of these young people and was discussed clearly. The journalist was able to include the point of view in a poignant way without directly quoting them. 

 
     I never realized how quotes can really make or break an article. I talked last week about political news, and how it is often very hard to follow. I think a major reason for this has to do with the quotes coming directly from the political source, and the lack of quotes coming from the “Sense-maker.”