I like the lead. It conveys the news hook with a somber tone that emphasizes the story’s significance to any American or international reader.
After that, however, the tone changes, and I’m not so sure I like it. The second graph reads as a mockery of the British Prime Minister and the summit itself, calling the proceedings “a choreographed show of unity.” The article is about other nations’ disagreement with President Obama’s new stimulus spending; it is not an editorial about the ineffectiveness of the summit. This language is effective and well written but would fit better on an opinions page.
This video below is a segment of a newscast, which discusses Obama’s persistent optimism as well as the international disagreements at the summit. I feel that its two-sided approach to the story is much more effective than the AP article.
Despite my quarrels with his tone, the author is undoubtedly a good writer. I love his plumbing metaphor for the economic crisis: “Collectively, the measures were an attempt to free the clogged pipes of capitalism….”
The fifth graph, however, could have been worded better. He says the leaders will “meet again in September, in New York in conjunction with the next United Nations General Assembly.” I think he could have found a re-wording that didn’t involve quite so many prepositional phrases beginning with the word “in.” The cluttered phrases are jarring to the reader.
In the seventh graph, we finally get to the content the headline promised. Some of the previous graphs probably should have been tightened in order to move this information more toward the beginning.
I’m not really satisfied with the ending of the article either. It appears to be a last attempt by the author to slide in his apparent scorn for the G-20 summit. I think it’s legitimate information, but it doesn’t work as a conclusion for this particular article.
The LA Times produced a less biased article in their editorial section (of all places), covering the same story with a more appropriate tone. It is also much more to-the-point than the AP story.
How might you encourage a writer to tone down opinions?
ReplyDeleteI'd tell them to save it for the opinions page--that I appreciate well-expressed opinions but not on my news page. Obviously it's hard to eliminate ALL bias from a news page, but a simple alteration of word choice and tone would make this article much more acceptable to me.
ReplyDeleteAt least both of these two articles written about the G-20 Summit, both contained actual political information that was discussed at the summit. As opposed to the article I posted for the fourth blog post, which featured fluff commentary on the gift Obama gave the Queen. Newspapers are supposed to provide the news, not gift ideas.
ReplyDelete