Hard News

Christian Gilbert

Journalism

24 Feb 2014

Trying Times in Florida

In a top news story from Reuters, the article focuses on the parents of Jordan Davis, the teenage shooting victim, working to fight Florida’s stand your ground law. A hard news story should give enough information for the reader to do minimal reading and get the story. In this article, the whole story is spelled out in the heading, “Parents of dead teen vow to fight Florida’s self-defense law”. If only reading nothing more than that on the front page of a newspaper, you would know what you needed to about the article. Moving on to the first paragraph, it answers all five H’s and the W. It flushes out everything in the heading and gives all the information you understand the topic and be able to walk away knowing enough to be satisfied.

If you continue, the article uses a quote from the mother about why they are pursuing this cause, acting as a good backup to the initial story and a solid transition into some backstory, if you were unaware of the story beforehand. It gives a brief account of the shooting, just enough for the reader to get a good grip on the incident without delving into that topic. This is a great way of keeping the reader informed if this is the first they are hearing the topic. It then uses another quote comparing the case to the George Zimmerman trail, using it as a springboard to move into the reason the parents and others are backing the move to change the stand-your-ground law. It gives some background on the Zimmerman case, but not as much, as it is not pertinent information to this article.

The article then continues about the moves the parents are making towards justice, including joining organizations and working to make strides towards disbanding the law that they say is being abused by people out of fear or hate. They say the law is too gray, and gives too much leeway in what it allows. The article ends with a quote from the mother about how she feels she is doing the right thing. The article is just short enough to keep the reader’s attention and to provide all the information the reader needs to know to be up to date on the issue.