IMPORTANT? I THINK NOT (MEDIA CRITQUE)
This article that was written September 17th about two dogs who were found after being lost for two weeks in Washington state. The journalists who wrote this: Susan Wyatt goes on to explain how Tillie (the dog who was not in the concrete ditch) would go out everyday to find help and how Tillie never left the side of her companion: Phoebe. Then it leads to things like how a non-profit rescuing organization posted the dogs information hoping to get some news back and it's a "happy/ go getting" article. One likes to think about how truly amazing animals are and how they do affect the lives of other people but this is not something to be placed in the NEWS section of a website.
Dogs are great and all but not superior enough to earn an article about themselves. This is going against the seventh element of the ten elements of journalism which is: Make the important interesting. There is no need for the nation or the people locally to know that two dogs from Washington state now have a home and are safe. There are millions of people who have dogs and who only care about the well-being of their own. This also goes against one of the seven yardsticks, being the first one which is: Newsworthiness. This is definitely not news worthy because this will be on USA Today for a minute and gone the next, this does not effect a large group of people and will most likely (most definitely) be something the world will be talking about.
Ms. Wyatt could've definitely left this article out of the news section...that's probably the best option at this point. Nonetheless, even if someone were to defend this article, there isn't much to defend. An article that is dead.
Good job with your blog, Melissa. I appreciate the fact that you're not afraid to be critical of classroom content in the blog, and that your entries show plenty of reflection.
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