In our journalism unit, we were supposed to create a news article within a newspaper with our group and to compare to news articles at the end of the unit. So throughout the unit, we learned techniques that would help us to write our article and to annotate the 2 articles. These things include; author’s craft (technique and style), effect on audience, mood, tone, content, etc. In this post, you will see some of the things we did throughout this unit, like the final draft of article, the writing process, and annotation of the the news articles.
The Glue Times Newspaper:
Compare & Contrast 2 Similar News Stories:
Compare:
The articles “Texas Faces Major Flooding” and “Catastrophe in the Gulf” are similar because they both describe Hurricane Harvey as a historically large hurricane in order to grab the reader’s attention. Hurricane Harvey is a hurricane that hit southeast Texas, causing mass destruction everywhere it went. Many were trapped in the path of the storm and needed rescuers to save them from the flooding even though the storm had just arrived. In page 4 of “Texas Faces Major Flooding” the author quotes the National Weather Service, saying ““flooding in the Houston metropolitan area is expected to worsen and could become historic” while the article “Catastrophe in the Gulf” said “That has led to historic flooding, mass destruction…” In “Texas Faces Major Flooding” the author mainly focuses on the flooding in Houston and how the flooding issue caused by Harvey could become more severe and rise to historic heights. The author of “Catastrophe in the Gulf” focuses more on how the whole of the storm is historic including the amount of destruction it left behind, not just the flooding. However, both authors are using the word historic in order to keep the readers intrigued and interested in the hurricane. Both articles recognised that although the flooding was a major problem, the storm was still ongoing and could become historic, but is not historic yet. The authors of both articles know that in order to maintain the reader’s attention, they need to use key words/impactful words in order to keep the audience engaged.
Contrast:
The articles “Texas Faces Major Flooding” and “Catastrophe in the Gulf” are different because the first article is sounds more biased in its description of the hurricane while the author of “Catastrophe in the Gulf” lets the audience know that the descriptions are based off of other trustworthy news networks. Hurricane Harvey was an unusual hurricane because the storm stayed intact above Houston instead of breaking up once it hit land, and this caused massive amounts of rain to fall; many have died from this flooding. On page 3 of “Texas Faces Major Flooding” the author uses uncertain phrases such as “at least” or “though that number may climb.” The author of “Catastrophe in the Gulf” says on page 3 that the ”breadth and intensity of this rain fall is beyond anything experienced before, the National Weather Service said in a statement.” In the quote from the “Texas Faces Major Flooding” article, the author is using phrases that makes the hurricane sound like it will cause a lot more destruction even though the hurricane is slowing down. The author does not take any quote from a trustworthy news site when saying that the number of deaths may climb, but instead is saying that from his own judgement and from his own opinions on the subject. Meanwhile, the author of “Catastrophe in the Gulf” takes a different approach to describing the hurricane in order to avoid biased/strong phrases like “at least.” The author tends to quote sources that the readers trust, like the National Weather Service, and in the statements from those trusted sources, there are impactful words and phrases. The difference is however, that the author of “Catastrophe in the Gulf” is using key phrases taken from sources that are trusted and sources the readers trust to give pure facts. The author of “Texas Faces Major Flooding” is making his own statements sound like bias because he doesn’t quote other sources, but just explains what he thinks the hurricane will destroy next. By quoting official sources, the description of the hurricane in “Catastrophe in the Gulf” manages to avoid sounding biased.
Annotation of news articles:
