Sometimes, news stories try so hard to be objective, they fail to provide any sense of perspective as to why the news matters. Today, some stories attain this better than others.
The New York Times’ coverage of the Turkish parliament’s decision to allow an incursion into northern Iraq to counter Kurdish attacks against Turkey presents the facts but neglects to convey the gravity of this situation. The article explains how and why the decision was reached and points out that although the decision allows for an incursion, that does not mean Turkey will actually choose to pursue this option. While the lack of analysis could be attributed to attempts at objectivity, it would be easy enough to provide quotes from officials that draw attention to the complexity of this as a diplomatic situation.
The Times of London, however, gets to the point by revealing the significance of Italian mayor Walter Veltroni’s election to head the new Democratic Party in
Italy. By the third paragraph, the reader understands that he ought to care who Veltroni is because he will be the likely successor to Prime Minister Romano Prodi. The
article also includes a very nice paragraph profile that reveals Veltroni’s background in the arts and cultural affairs as a novelist and founder of the Rome Film Festival.
The Boston Globe also gets to the point in the lede of its article on Niki Tsongas’s victory in the Massachusetts Fifth Congressional District special election. It states right away that Tsongas is the first woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress in 25 years. The article doesn’t stop there, though: it continues by drawing attention to the closeness of the race, which showed the smallest margin of difference between a Democratic and Republican candidate in that distance in a long time.
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