I think the point that resonated with me the most during our discussion was the one about commercial influence on news coverage. On one hand it gets me very frustrated about these so-called journalists who would “sell out” and write a fluff piece because they don’t want to offend their advertisers. We have talked about this in my ethics class and have brought up question of how far one would be willing to go if their job or someone else’s job were on the line.
This brings me to the other side of the equation, which is the reality that journalism is a business and journalists need to make money to survive and support themselves and their families. To this end, if pissing off your advertisers means getting less money and perhaps having some people laid off, would you still be willing to stick up for those lofty journalism ideals? I would like to say that I would try not to budge, but with stakes so high I’m not sure what I would do in that case…
Reading the Wal-Mart case study got me thinking about how hard it is to do advances for things like store openings without sounding like an advertisement. Editors have to be careful when assigning these types of stories to reporters to explain the fine line between giving information to your readers and sounding like a public relations firm. If the time is available, the reporter should try to delve into the deeper issues and the big picture — or even try to ask some tough questions when appropriate. Obviously, this is me being an idealist because I realize that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for newsrooms to be completely separate from their advertising departments.
I like the question Rene posed: If pissing off your advertisers means getting less money and perhaps having some people laid off, would you still be willing to stick up for those lofty journalism ideals? Personally, of course I’d rather run a better story, but at the same time, I don’t think this particular case is worth the paper possibly going under or an employee getting laid off.
This scenario is interesting because it seems like it would mostly affect only the papers with an average circulation. Huge papers have enough readers and advertisers that losing one source of income probably won’t affect them drastically, and small papers that only run a few days a week and have fewer readers (such as the paper that published the story including the protest) know they’re not going to get business from advertisers that big, anyway.
Many of us (myself included) would probably rather work for the average paper than its much smaller, competing counterpart, but it’s interesting to think about the freedoms a smaller paper has by comparison. There also tends to be more job security in smaller publications, I’ve noticed, because if you’re the only one who does your job, you’re much less likely to get laid off than if you’re one of four or five people who do the same job and the publication starts downsizing. It can also be nice to work in a closer, family-like atmosphere of a smaller newspaper. Some things to think about when applying for jobs.
At first, I liked the second article better because it wasn’t some press release reguritated onto the page and it offered a little bit more of a perspective on the issues at hand. Naturally, the second article is much more negative than the first, but I still liked the fact that it presented another side to the story.
As we got to talking in class, I was swayed a little bit on my choice. Yes, the second one may have been a little better, but it was definitely just as skewed as the first one. The author of the Athens News article didn’t go on to interview any supporters of the Wal-Mart grand opening, any local business owners who may or may not have been in favor of the idea, or any community members who didn’t have an agenda like the protestor who was quoted. Like Colleen said in class, the Athens News article author sort of makes his own assertions about how the public feels about the new store, but he didn’t back up his claims with evidence.
The bottom line is that both of these stories were severely lacking in sources from all vantage points. Granted this may have been a late news release and the authors may have been stressed for time, but holding the story and waiting to get some interesting perspectives would have made this article so much better.
While both of these stories were quite obviously different in how they portrayed the information meant to be portrayed, I think the first story at least told the news of the story. While the second story looked for a local angle of sorts and another way to tell the press release story, the news meant to be told was that Wal-Mart was coming to Athens. The news was not that a debate was to begin or Wal-Mart was evil, as that debate had come and gone in the months prior to this story being told. The second story seemed to try and fish up some old content and angles to make the story something it needn’t be.
In fact, it seemed that the Athens News in this case was fishing for an A1 story package that just wasn’t there. The News might have been better off just leaving the press release on the page like the first news outlet did. While the press release in boring and mundane, it is the news that needs to be told. If there was no opposition to the opening of a Wal-Mart at that moment, no protests outside the doors or local rumblings, then there is no basis for the second story.
While I thought the second story was so much better at first, after our conversation I realized that the second story was sensationalizing the issue to some extent. While the first story just downplayed the event to a press release format, there was no other news to be told at that point. I think this is an issue of all journalism in general, and particularly political journalism. Papers seem to do this so often when covering anything political, as they try to drum up a controversy where none may exist or only a few are willing to weigh in.
Overall, I support the first paper’s decision to run the press release and chastise the second paper’s lack of serious consideration toward what it was writing. At the end of the day, it seems prudent to ask whether losing an advertiser is really worth writing something as hollow and useless as what they wrote.
Nick brings up a good point. It isn’t our job to make up controversy when there isn’t any. However, it is our job to investigate controversy that already exists and to give it the correct amount of exposure.
If the protesters really were just a few people out of a town mostly content with the idea of a new Wal-Mart, then the writer should have made that point more clearly by adding more interviews for the positive side of the story. If the protests were a big deal and businesses had been complaining about the grand opening, that part of the story belongs near the top, not after a jump, as it appeared in the paper. The second story was incomplete and lacked organization. The writer mentioned the protests near or in the lead but then waited until the next page to explain them.
Both stories needed more time and work, but the second story is more disappointing because it showed so much more potential.
I know there’s a concern regarding sensationalism, but the fact is Wal-mart has been controversial in many similar communities across the country. A couple years ago, I saw a great PBS program on Wal-mart’s affect on local economies titlesd “Is Wal-mart Good for America?” You can now watch it online at
I don’t think The Athens News made up a controversy that didn’t exist. Even if the majority of the community is in support of the new store, the writer must speak to the those who are not. Wal-mart already made the store’s great benefit to the community obvious. Perhaps this is all anyone knows.
In fact, the News should have delved deeper into the controversy at both a local and national level to give readers some perspective.
I know there’s a concern regarding sensationalism, but the fact is Wal-mart has been controversial in many similar communities across the country. A couple years ago, I saw a great PBS program on Wal-mart’s affect on local economies titled “Is Wal-mart Good for America?” You can now watch it online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart. (Sorry, I haven’t figured out this inserting links thing yet)
I don’t think The Athens News made up a controversy that didn’t exist. Even if the majority of the community is in support of the new store, the writer must speak to the those who are not. Wal-mart already made the store’s great benefit to the community obvious. Perhaps this is all anyone knows.
In fact, the News should have delved deeper into the controversy at both a local and national level to give readers some perspective.
I agree with Rachel that the News wasn’t creating a controversy where there wasn’t one already. I think the issue of local business versus big competitors is a common theme whenever a new super store opens in a small town. One need look no further than the 1996 movie “Waiting for Guffman,” in which a high school music teacher is the subject of this tidbit of gossip: “He doesn’t even support the town. He shops at Wal-Mart.”
Therefore, I don’t think the second news story was sensationalized at all. I think the story does show a good bit of balance by quoting both Wal-Mart’s news release and the disgruntled local protestor. I think it’s a much more complete story than the first one, which lacked perspective of any kind.
The inherent problem in covering any press release-style story is that the reporter will, as Laura mentioned, run the risk of sounding like a public relations firm or an advertiser. Reading both articles on the opening of the new Wal-Mart in Anthens posed an intriguing question: why make this into a full news story at all? Why not make it a brief, or a sidebar, or something that simply provides the date, the time and the place. What more do we really need to know? There’s a Wal-Mart opening, this is where it’s going to be, and this is when it’ll be open to the public. Just about anything else would turn this story into a free advertisement for a corporation that needs little help in getting it’s name out to the public. If you were looking for an actual story, such as the controversy of opening a super-mega-monster store in a small community where it threatens local businesses, then you would need a lot more material and sources than just Wal-Mart’s press release.
I agree with Matt that this story could easily have been a brief, and that this would be much better than running a fluff piece like the Messenger did. However, I don’t think that means that a deeper story didn’t exist there. The problem is that the Athens News didn’t capture it.
The News stories one-ups the Messenger as far as sourcing goes. But one-upping a one-source story isn’t doing much. The News story uses only two sources: the same press release as the Messenger used and a protester opposed to the Wal-Mart’s opening. So, sure, it gives both sides of the issue. But it doesn’t examine either side in very great depth.
The News story’s presentation of the pro-Wal-Mart side of the story was particularly weak, as it didn’t even use a human source. It seemed kind of snarky to comment that the press release “does not go into how much income Wal-Mart takes in compared to the amount it gives to charity” when it’s not clear that the reporter even tried to talk to a Wal-Mart official and find this out.
The story’s worst failure is that it fails to quantify exactly how broad-based the resistance to the store’s opening is within the town. The story says that, “Over the years, numerous protest have been held in Athens against Wal-Mart and other big box stores.” This statement is so vague that it could be misleading. How many protests took place? Over how many years? And how many people attended? How large is the Save Our Local Economy group, compared to the size of the town? The News story raises so many questions that it just doesn’t answer.
I think Matt has it pretty much on the money in my book: either keep it short and to the point, or make it deep, involved and include much more reporting.
I agree with Matt when he poses the question why the story should have been a full story in the first place. A brief would have sufficed in letting people know what was happening. The facts should have been presented in a short format, but the reporter could have then written a separate, longer story that doesn’t include PR for Wal-Mart. The long story should be balanced, instead of only writing about the merits of the new store or only writing about the negative reactions.
I do agree with the previous comments about the first article sounding like a public relations firm. The second story, however, does not create controversy when there isn’t any. They created a story – a newspaper’s job. There has always been controversy relating to the Wal-Mart franchise. While both stories did have problems, the second one fulfilled its job better as an information source for the reader. It gave both sides to a story, even if the negative side was more stressed. Also, I think any reader knows what a Wal-Mart store has to offer without learning about it in a newspaper. The first story contained too many facts and numbers relating to the opening of the store, and neglected to answer the “why” question of writing a story. It is important to know the underlying facts behind every story. In addition, in a small town such as in Ohio, most readers would be aware of the protesting surrounding the opening of the store and many would not understand why. Therefore, the second article was more informative to the naive reader.
As I was reading my stuff for my abstract items, I came across one of the 7 Deadly sins of copy editing: Laziness. Both of these stories smell strongly of it. The first story seems to me like a rookie mistake: You get a press release and fluff it into a story, no questions asked. This happened to me the first time I got a press release over in the UF News Bureau that I had to translate into a story. I was so naive and unaware of how it all worked that I basically just re-wrote it word for word. Perhaps the editor of the story didn’t feel the need to correct it because he simply wanted a story about Wal-Mart opening, which the first article produces. Perhaps he wasn’t looking for anything else besides just that. I can forgive the mistakes of the first story because they seem to be made out of haste or misunderstanding of how the news world works. I do have quite a bigger problem with the next story though. For a newspaper to hide behind the mask of objectivity and then to turn around and produce a story of this quality is sickening. They seem to be making an effort at discrediting Wal-Mart, but at what cost? They do absolutely no research to answer the questions they raise within the article. This is pure laziness. They are making a mockery of a store that has no right to be mocked without the proper numbers to back up their assertions. What about one of the golden rules of journalism: Leave no unanswered questions within the story. They fail miserably in this regard, most importantly because they actually raise the questions themselves! My biggest problem with these stories was just the utter laziness. But I think you can even distinguish between the two: laziness because of not knowing any better and laziness because of a fear that your brand of “objective” journalism may turn out to be phony.
Both articles were lacking; one was a little too rah-rah Wal-Mart, and one seemed decidedly against the company and revealed that bias in his story. Neither was objective, but I agree with those who already commented that they preferred the first story. Although the author of the first story doesn’t say anything negative about Wal-Mart, what does he really say that’s positive? Some of the cited facts (the one about Wal-Mart community contributions, in particular) are impressive, but Wal-Mart is a large company with high earnings, and that cannot and should not be downplayed in an attempt at objective reporting. The first story might be a little boring, but how controversial is the opening of yet another Wal-Mart? I agree with Nick that the story was about the opening of the Wal-Mart and not about the original controversy surrounding the decision to open the store.
Both articles were not well thought out. Notice how i say articles, not stories. The first piece is a press release not an article and the second is a press release followed by an opinion piece. A solution to this problem has been showing up in a lot of the magazines that I read. General Motors is really pushing its hybrid and E85 fuel technologies to most of the big automotive publications. In these positive PR pieces the information is presented in the form of a story, but at the top of the page “Paid Advertisement” is printed in small bold letters. A similiar solution could have been used in the case of the first article, letting the readers know that your paper has not turned into the Wal-Mart PR firm.
I thought both of the articles were lacking compared to what they could have done. The first aticle seemed to be nothing more than a press release from Wal-Mart and didn’t include any information other than how wonderful the company is. I also thought there was too much needless information regarding what the store would hold and what the grand opening will feature.
I think the second story was slightly better than the first because it included the reaction of angry citizens. I thought it was good to include this in the article because it is an important part of the story. The problem I had with the article though is the information about the upset residents was buried under the information about how wonderful the new Wal-Mart will be. I think if a paper was going to cover the unhappiness the new Wal-Mart is bringing, they shouldn’t bury that information in the end of the story, especially when they lead with that angle.
The two stories on the Wal-Mart opening in Athens different immensely. In “Athens is welcoming Wal-Mart” it seems that the author, Richard Beck, copied and reworded the Wal-Mart press release. The other story, “Wal-Mart to strike up the bands for grand opening Wed.” appears biased against the opening of Wal-Mart. This became apparent to me after the author compared the size of Wal-Mart with a Kroger supermarket, which seemed unnecessary to the story, and the author’s inclusion of only one side of the story, what the protesters had to say.
Unlike the first story which reads like a press release, “Wal-Mart to strike up bands” addresses the social context of Wal-Mart’s opening in Athens. The story offers the perspective of the town’s activists, who are opposed to the opening.
I think that to know why these two publications took different approaches, I would have to know more about the publications. The newspaper that published “Wal-Mart to strike up bands” might be a newspaper that is known for more investigative journalism with a liberal leftist slant, and the other newspaper might be known for just wanting to deliver the news and not get readers riled up. I also have a feeling the newspaper that published “Athens is welcoming Wal-Mart” may have a more right-wing conservative slant, because the real story is that not all of Athens actually is welcoming Wal-Mart. Many protesters aren’t.
I think the point that resonated with me the most during our discussion was the one about commercial influence on news coverage. On one hand it gets me very frustrated about these so-called journalists who would “sell out” and write a fluff piece because they don’t want to offend their advertisers. We have talked about this in my ethics class and have brought up question of how far one would be willing to go if their job or someone else’s job were on the line.
This brings me to the other side of the equation, which is the reality that journalism is a business and journalists need to make money to survive and support themselves and their families. To this end, if pissing off your advertisers means getting less money and perhaps having some people laid off, would you still be willing to stick up for those lofty journalism ideals? I would like to say that I would try not to budge, but with stakes so high I’m not sure what I would do in that case…
Reading the Wal-Mart case study got me thinking about how hard it is to do advances for things like store openings without sounding like an advertisement. Editors have to be careful when assigning these types of stories to reporters to explain the fine line between giving information to your readers and sounding like a public relations firm. If the time is available, the reporter should try to delve into the deeper issues and the big picture — or even try to ask some tough questions when appropriate. Obviously, this is me being an idealist because I realize that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for newsrooms to be completely separate from their advertising departments.
I like the question Rene posed: If pissing off your advertisers means getting less money and perhaps having some people laid off, would you still be willing to stick up for those lofty journalism ideals? Personally, of course I’d rather run a better story, but at the same time, I don’t think this particular case is worth the paper possibly going under or an employee getting laid off.
This scenario is interesting because it seems like it would mostly affect only the papers with an average circulation. Huge papers have enough readers and advertisers that losing one source of income probably won’t affect them drastically, and small papers that only run a few days a week and have fewer readers (such as the paper that published the story including the protest) know they’re not going to get business from advertisers that big, anyway.
Many of us (myself included) would probably rather work for the average paper than its much smaller, competing counterpart, but it’s interesting to think about the freedoms a smaller paper has by comparison. There also tends to be more job security in smaller publications, I’ve noticed, because if you’re the only one who does your job, you’re much less likely to get laid off than if you’re one of four or five people who do the same job and the publication starts downsizing. It can also be nice to work in a closer, family-like atmosphere of a smaller newspaper. Some things to think about when applying for jobs.
At first, I liked the second article better because it wasn’t some press release reguritated onto the page and it offered a little bit more of a perspective on the issues at hand. Naturally, the second article is much more negative than the first, but I still liked the fact that it presented another side to the story.
As we got to talking in class, I was swayed a little bit on my choice. Yes, the second one may have been a little better, but it was definitely just as skewed as the first one. The author of the Athens News article didn’t go on to interview any supporters of the Wal-Mart grand opening, any local business owners who may or may not have been in favor of the idea, or any community members who didn’t have an agenda like the protestor who was quoted. Like Colleen said in class, the Athens News article author sort of makes his own assertions about how the public feels about the new store, but he didn’t back up his claims with evidence.
The bottom line is that both of these stories were severely lacking in sources from all vantage points. Granted this may have been a late news release and the authors may have been stressed for time, but holding the story and waiting to get some interesting perspectives would have made this article so much better.
While both of these stories were quite obviously different in how they portrayed the information meant to be portrayed, I think the first story at least told the news of the story. While the second story looked for a local angle of sorts and another way to tell the press release story, the news meant to be told was that Wal-Mart was coming to Athens. The news was not that a debate was to begin or Wal-Mart was evil, as that debate had come and gone in the months prior to this story being told. The second story seemed to try and fish up some old content and angles to make the story something it needn’t be.
In fact, it seemed that the Athens News in this case was fishing for an A1 story package that just wasn’t there. The News might have been better off just leaving the press release on the page like the first news outlet did. While the press release in boring and mundane, it is the news that needs to be told. If there was no opposition to the opening of a Wal-Mart at that moment, no protests outside the doors or local rumblings, then there is no basis for the second story.
While I thought the second story was so much better at first, after our conversation I realized that the second story was sensationalizing the issue to some extent. While the first story just downplayed the event to a press release format, there was no other news to be told at that point. I think this is an issue of all journalism in general, and particularly political journalism. Papers seem to do this so often when covering anything political, as they try to drum up a controversy where none may exist or only a few are willing to weigh in.
Overall, I support the first paper’s decision to run the press release and chastise the second paper’s lack of serious consideration toward what it was writing. At the end of the day, it seems prudent to ask whether losing an advertiser is really worth writing something as hollow and useless as what they wrote.
Nick brings up a good point. It isn’t our job to make up controversy when there isn’t any. However, it is our job to investigate controversy that already exists and to give it the correct amount of exposure.
If the protesters really were just a few people out of a town mostly content with the idea of a new Wal-Mart, then the writer should have made that point more clearly by adding more interviews for the positive side of the story. If the protests were a big deal and businesses had been complaining about the grand opening, that part of the story belongs near the top, not after a jump, as it appeared in the paper. The second story was incomplete and lacked organization. The writer mentioned the protests near or in the lead but then waited until the next page to explain them.
Both stories needed more time and work, but the second story is more disappointing because it showed so much more potential.
I know there’s a concern regarding sensationalism, but the fact is Wal-mart has been controversial in many similar communities across the country. A couple years ago, I saw a great PBS program on Wal-mart’s affect on local economies titlesd “Is Wal-mart Good for America?” You can now watch it online at
I don’t think The Athens News made up a controversy that didn’t exist. Even if the majority of the community is in support of the new store, the writer must speak to the those who are not. Wal-mart already made the store’s great benefit to the community obvious. Perhaps this is all anyone knows.
In fact, the News should have delved deeper into the controversy at both a local and national level to give readers some perspective.
I know there’s a concern regarding sensationalism, but the fact is Wal-mart has been controversial in many similar communities across the country. A couple years ago, I saw a great PBS program on Wal-mart’s affect on local economies titled “Is Wal-mart Good for America?” You can now watch it online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart. (Sorry, I haven’t figured out this inserting links thing yet)
I don’t think The Athens News made up a controversy that didn’t exist. Even if the majority of the community is in support of the new store, the writer must speak to the those who are not. Wal-mart already made the store’s great benefit to the community obvious. Perhaps this is all anyone knows.
In fact, the News should have delved deeper into the controversy at both a local and national level to give readers some perspective.
yeah and Wal-Mart is spelled thusly
I agree with Rachel that the News wasn’t creating a controversy where there wasn’t one already. I think the issue of local business versus big competitors is a common theme whenever a new super store opens in a small town. One need look no further than the 1996 movie “Waiting for Guffman,” in which a high school music teacher is the subject of this tidbit of gossip: “He doesn’t even support the town. He shops at Wal-Mart.”
Therefore, I don’t think the second news story was sensationalized at all. I think the story does show a good bit of balance by quoting both Wal-Mart’s news release and the disgruntled local protestor. I think it’s a much more complete story than the first one, which lacked perspective of any kind.
The inherent problem in covering any press release-style story is that the reporter will, as Laura mentioned, run the risk of sounding like a public relations firm or an advertiser. Reading both articles on the opening of the new Wal-Mart in Anthens posed an intriguing question: why make this into a full news story at all? Why not make it a brief, or a sidebar, or something that simply provides the date, the time and the place. What more do we really need to know? There’s a Wal-Mart opening, this is where it’s going to be, and this is when it’ll be open to the public. Just about anything else would turn this story into a free advertisement for a corporation that needs little help in getting it’s name out to the public. If you were looking for an actual story, such as the controversy of opening a super-mega-monster store in a small community where it threatens local businesses, then you would need a lot more material and sources than just Wal-Mart’s press release.
I agree with Matt that this story could easily have been a brief, and that this would be much better than running a fluff piece like the Messenger did. However, I don’t think that means that a deeper story didn’t exist there. The problem is that the Athens News didn’t capture it.
The News stories one-ups the Messenger as far as sourcing goes. But one-upping a one-source story isn’t doing much. The News story uses only two sources: the same press release as the Messenger used and a protester opposed to the Wal-Mart’s opening. So, sure, it gives both sides of the issue. But it doesn’t examine either side in very great depth.
The News story’s presentation of the pro-Wal-Mart side of the story was particularly weak, as it didn’t even use a human source. It seemed kind of snarky to comment that the press release “does not go into how much income Wal-Mart takes in compared to the amount it gives to charity” when it’s not clear that the reporter even tried to talk to a Wal-Mart official and find this out.
The story’s worst failure is that it fails to quantify exactly how broad-based the resistance to the store’s opening is within the town. The story says that, “Over the years, numerous protest have been held in Athens against Wal-Mart and other big box stores.” This statement is so vague that it could be misleading. How many protests took place? Over how many years? And how many people attended? How large is the Save Our Local Economy group, compared to the size of the town? The News story raises so many questions that it just doesn’t answer.
I think Matt has it pretty much on the money in my book: either keep it short and to the point, or make it deep, involved and include much more reporting.
I agree with Matt when he poses the question why the story should have been a full story in the first place. A brief would have sufficed in letting people know what was happening. The facts should have been presented in a short format, but the reporter could have then written a separate, longer story that doesn’t include PR for Wal-Mart. The long story should be balanced, instead of only writing about the merits of the new store or only writing about the negative reactions.
I do agree with the previous comments about the first article sounding like a public relations firm. The second story, however, does not create controversy when there isn’t any. They created a story – a newspaper’s job. There has always been controversy relating to the Wal-Mart franchise. While both stories did have problems, the second one fulfilled its job better as an information source for the reader. It gave both sides to a story, even if the negative side was more stressed. Also, I think any reader knows what a Wal-Mart store has to offer without learning about it in a newspaper. The first story contained too many facts and numbers relating to the opening of the store, and neglected to answer the “why” question of writing a story. It is important to know the underlying facts behind every story. In addition, in a small town such as in Ohio, most readers would be aware of the protesting surrounding the opening of the store and many would not understand why. Therefore, the second article was more informative to the naive reader.
Colleen Bennett
colbe6@ufl.edu
As I was reading my stuff for my abstract items, I came across one of the 7 Deadly sins of copy editing: Laziness. Both of these stories smell strongly of it. The first story seems to me like a rookie mistake: You get a press release and fluff it into a story, no questions asked. This happened to me the first time I got a press release over in the UF News Bureau that I had to translate into a story. I was so naive and unaware of how it all worked that I basically just re-wrote it word for word. Perhaps the editor of the story didn’t feel the need to correct it because he simply wanted a story about Wal-Mart opening, which the first article produces. Perhaps he wasn’t looking for anything else besides just that. I can forgive the mistakes of the first story because they seem to be made out of haste or misunderstanding of how the news world works. I do have quite a bigger problem with the next story though. For a newspaper to hide behind the mask of objectivity and then to turn around and produce a story of this quality is sickening. They seem to be making an effort at discrediting Wal-Mart, but at what cost? They do absolutely no research to answer the questions they raise within the article. This is pure laziness. They are making a mockery of a store that has no right to be mocked without the proper numbers to back up their assertions. What about one of the golden rules of journalism: Leave no unanswered questions within the story. They fail miserably in this regard, most importantly because they actually raise the questions themselves! My biggest problem with these stories was just the utter laziness. But I think you can even distinguish between the two: laziness because of not knowing any better and laziness because of a fear that your brand of “objective” journalism may turn out to be phony.
Both articles were lacking; one was a little too rah-rah Wal-Mart, and one seemed decidedly against the company and revealed that bias in his story. Neither was objective, but I agree with those who already commented that they preferred the first story. Although the author of the first story doesn’t say anything negative about Wal-Mart, what does he really say that’s positive? Some of the cited facts (the one about Wal-Mart community contributions, in particular) are impressive, but Wal-Mart is a large company with high earnings, and that cannot and should not be downplayed in an attempt at objective reporting. The first story might be a little boring, but how controversial is the opening of yet another Wal-Mart? I agree with Nick that the story was about the opening of the Wal-Mart and not about the original controversy surrounding the decision to open the store.
Both articles were not well thought out. Notice how i say articles, not stories. The first piece is a press release not an article and the second is a press release followed by an opinion piece. A solution to this problem has been showing up in a lot of the magazines that I read. General Motors is really pushing its hybrid and E85 fuel technologies to most of the big automotive publications. In these positive PR pieces the information is presented in the form of a story, but at the top of the page “Paid Advertisement” is printed in small bold letters. A similiar solution could have been used in the case of the first article, letting the readers know that your paper has not turned into the Wal-Mart PR firm.
I thought both of the articles were lacking compared to what they could have done. The first aticle seemed to be nothing more than a press release from Wal-Mart and didn’t include any information other than how wonderful the company is. I also thought there was too much needless information regarding what the store would hold and what the grand opening will feature.
I think the second story was slightly better than the first because it included the reaction of angry citizens. I thought it was good to include this in the article because it is an important part of the story. The problem I had with the article though is the information about the upset residents was buried under the information about how wonderful the new Wal-Mart will be. I think if a paper was going to cover the unhappiness the new Wal-Mart is bringing, they shouldn’t bury that information in the end of the story, especially when they lead with that angle.
The two stories on the Wal-Mart opening in Athens different immensely. In “Athens is welcoming Wal-Mart” it seems that the author, Richard Beck, copied and reworded the Wal-Mart press release. The other story, “Wal-Mart to strike up the bands for grand opening Wed.” appears biased against the opening of Wal-Mart. This became apparent to me after the author compared the size of Wal-Mart with a Kroger supermarket, which seemed unnecessary to the story, and the author’s inclusion of only one side of the story, what the protesters had to say.
Unlike the first story which reads like a press release, “Wal-Mart to strike up bands” addresses the social context of Wal-Mart’s opening in Athens. The story offers the perspective of the town’s activists, who are opposed to the opening.
I think that to know why these two publications took different approaches, I would have to know more about the publications. The newspaper that published “Wal-Mart to strike up bands” might be a newspaper that is known for more investigative journalism with a liberal leftist slant, and the other newspaper might be known for just wanting to deliver the news and not get readers riled up. I also have a feeling the newspaper that published “Athens is welcoming Wal-Mart” may have a more right-wing conservative slant, because the real story is that not all of Athens actually is welcoming Wal-Mart. Many protesters aren’t.