the Times 3/30-4/2

Monday:
One article that held my attention was the one about Glenn Beck. It started with the headline (calling someone mad, apocalyptic, and tearful catches the reader’s attention) and went all the way through. I thought it was a good article but sort of biased. It seemed to be an article written about a conservative from a liberal’s point of view.
I think a great international story is the one about people in Iraq buying Hummers. This is a neat way of showing how the culture we are familiar with can be seen abroad, even in places like Iraq where we are used to just hearing war stories from.
the story about gun control on Texas campuses caught my attention just because it is something you don’t hear about very often. usually schools are very firm about their no-guns policy so it’s interesting to hear about one that isn’t.


Tuesday:
One article that caught my eye right away was the one about colleges and money. It is a new trend in this economy that I don’t think anyone wants to see. And it raises the question as to how much financial status influences the decisions for admission at UNH.
Another front-page story that I noticed was the one about the auto companies. It was interesting to see what is happening in this story as it develops over a few days/weeks. I think that is one advantage that newspapers have over our stories: it is interesting to follow a story as it goes along. (It is probably easier for daily papers to do that than for weekly…)
A story that I thought was interesting was the one about bullfighting in Korea. I think it caught my attention just because it was random and I never would expect to find a bullfighting story in the New York Times. I guess this is an example of how it is important to find a new story, or at least a new approach to a story, in order to make it interesting to readers.


Wednesday:
A story that I thought very interesting was the one about how boats were being abandoned in South Carolina. This trend just puts a new face on the state of the economy: people are so low on money that they have to just leave boats on the shore because they can’t afford them and no one else can afford to buy them.
A developing story that is interesting is the one about injured workers and how they fare when trying to collect workers’ compensation. This story is interesting because it deals with the economy, the government, and has a strong human-interest appeal: it is discussing the lives of regular citizens.
a few articles on governmental issues were interesting. two stories caught my eye because they were placed on the same page and both used the word “democrat” in the title. I am not sure why this caught my attention, but the repetitive headlines sort of made me wonder where the republicans were on all this and so I had to check out the stories. on that same page, I thought it was interesting about the government apologizing to Hawaii. This is something that you don’t see every day, and it also brought out an interesting conflict as it discussed the apology contrasted with the decision to still take land.


Thursday:
an article that caught my attention immediately was the one on the first page of the Business Day section that talked about anxiety in Hungarian markets. I think this is an article that wouldn’t interest a lot of people, as many do not know much about Hungary, but I studied abroad there last semester and am therefore very interested in what is going on.
Another article that I thought was interesting was the one about the Stevens case. It seems very strange that a court would consider dropping all charges against a man convicted on seven felony counts last year. When the story mentions violations of the prosecution as a reason for dropping the charges, it brings in a sense of irony since Stevens was convicted on ethics violations.
I think it was good that they put in another story about workers’ injuries. This story went on to show people’s reactions to what is going on. I think this is a nice way to continue this story; instead of just focusing on what is happening it is good to see what people think of it.
The story about visas did a good job of explaining what you need to know about the visa process without going into all the unnecessary, and perhaps confusing, details. this story pointed out a difference in what was expected because of the bad economy and what is actually happening. I think this made it a stronger article than what it would have been if it had merely talked about what is happening.