Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is it a crime? and Trial by Fire are two feature stories that recall tragedies involving a parents loss of a child. Both of these stories epitomize good writing, and in my opinion how the relationship between a reporter and subject greatly affect the written work.
It goes without saying that the amount of work, and time both reporters but into these pieces made for incredible detail, and in turn allowed for the writers to play with their styling of the articles. In Fatal Distraction, the relationship that the reporter had with his subjects and the amount of extra research done in order to prove theories behind memory loss, helped him to write this story without leaving any holes. He was also able to include the various layers and characters as well as the dramatic ending. As for the Trial By Fire article, the reporters relationship and research into every aspect of this mans trial, life, and even research done outside of the trial, created this incredibly complex and intricate story that allowed for the reader to go through a roller-coster of emotions.
One thing I noticed about both of these articles is how both of them dealt with subjects that could have easily been pinned as the bad guy if it was a hard news story. In my mind hard news stories are supposed to be unbiased. When you look at these articles, even though they present the facts, they seem to have compassion and aim to have the reader feel a certain way at the end. This made me realize that hard news is in a way biased. We talk in class about the angles reporters choose to take and when considering stories like this we can see that the reporters could have approached the stories from a variety of angles just as hard news reporters do. These articles however do not take the obvious angle. I think part of the reason this was able to happen is because of the extensive amount of information the reporters gathered.
It should go without saying that I will probably spend my whole career striving to write like these two reporters have. It is so rare to find articles that report facts, tell a story, allow for a good read, and don’t allow for reader fatigue. I especially liked the Fatal Distraction article because after further examination of the writing styles I have come to realize that the writing in this is truly impeccable.
Jolie, I'm glad you liked teh stories so much. They are both great pieces of feature work. I think you successfully identify many of the key components that makes them so good. and you're absolutely right that a writer is always choosing the angle. That's why I'm always talking about the Myth of Neutrality, as practiced by the nyt. A good reporter doing news reporting strives to keep her own biases in check. but she is always making decisions.
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