AHSON OBITUARY (Revised)

JEFFREY AHSON, NAVY VETERAN, DIES AT 79

by Maris Cohen

KALAMAZOO, Mich.--Jeffrey R. Ahson, a celebrated Navy veteran, firefighter, and former car salesman, died of complications from emphysema last night at his home. He was 79.

Mr. Ahson received a Purple Heart and a Navy Cross for his heroic efforts in World War II, where he was a petty officer aboard the USS Emory.  During the Battle of Midway, Mr. Ahson crossed the burning deck of the ship to save the lives of four injured sailors and gun down three enemy aircrafts.  He was later promoted to ensign.

"Ahson was a genuine American hero," said Jeraldine Fyfe, Lt. Commander of the U.S. Navy in a statement released by Naval Public Relations.

Born in Chico, Calif., Mr. Ahson moved to Kalamazoo in 1946 and began working as a firefighter.  He then got a job as a car salesman at Don Seelye's Ford, where he worked until his retirement in 1985.

Mr. Ahson also collected firefighting memorabilia throughout his life and would display his collection often at local elementary schools.  The remainder of his collection can be found at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.  

In his spare time, Mr. Ahson ushered at the John Calvin Presbyterian Church and belonged to the National Checkers Assosciation, Elks Lodge, and Gideon's International.  He was also a member of American Legion Post 702 and VFW Post 4206.

Mr. Ahson is survived by his wife, Therese Alpert, of Kalamazoo, and his three children, Richard D. Ahson of Phillipsburg, Kan.; Angela Molina of Omaha, Neb.; and Lela Stalling of Pipe Creek, Texas. He is also survived by his brother, Henry Ahson of San Francisco, two sisters, Judith Eaker of Reidsville, N.C. and Shirley Solomon of Newark, N.J., five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Viewings will occur from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on Friday.  Services will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Littleton Mortuary.  The burial will take place at the Memorial Park Cemetery immediately following the service.  The family requests no flowers.

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The Elements of Journalism

When reading Chapter 5, "Independence from Faction," I was struck mostly by the following statement: "Being impartial or neutral is not a core principle of journalism."

I believe that I was struck so profoundly by this statement because so many are afraid to be this honest, or admit that every writer, journalist or not, has an inherent bias regardless of how objective they think that they are on a specific topic.

This then presents an interesting paradox: it's wonderful that journalists can write honestly and maturely enough that they can acknowledge their own biases, but there is a certain point where people need to obtain neutral information from which they can draw their own conclusions.

"The Elements of Journalism" then presents an idea that seems to be a perfect balance: the concept of independence from faction.

"Independence from faction suggests there is a way to be a journalist without either denying the influence of personal experience or being hostage to it." 

What Kovach and Rosenstiel mean by this is that, in their words, "the question is not neutrality, but purpose." I find this to be the most effective way to word this concept because it insinuates that there is a way to write about what you believe in or what you don't believe in without writing for or against it. 

I also thought that it emphasizes that opinions don't necessarily denote bias, and what inspires someone to write about an article should not automatically be interpreted as a conflict of interest.  In that way, the main goal of a journalist should be to write an informative, cohesive piece, and they should choose whether or not to include their opinions in relation to how it affects the formation of this informative, cohesive piece, not in fear of alienating a certain audience or breaking some journalistic belief that there is only one truth.

I also believe that this recognition of "independence from faction" relates to another point made by Kovach and Rosenstiel earlier in the book.  They emphasize the importance of recognizing that there is more to a story than the literal truth, and I felt that this is a concept to which "independence from faction" greatly relates.

Article Analysis (Wk 8)

The article that I'm analyzing can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/26/caylee.anthony.gag.order/index.html

This story follows the progress of the case against the mother in Orlando, FL currently being charged with the murder of her three year old daughter.

The story begins with a typical hard news lead that addresses what has been happening with the case recently.  The lede reads as follows:

"A judge denied prosecutors' request request for a gag order in the case of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman charged with killing her missing 3-year-old daughter, Caylee."

Immediately following the lead is the nut graph, which provides the reasoning for why the judge did not grant the gag order.  The story than progresses in typical hard news story fashion, which is the inverted pyramid structure.  It continues with background information about the case, and includes quotations from the judge about his ruling.

I found the quotations selected by the author in the case to be surprisingly effective; they weren't particularly eloquent or thought provoking, but they were effective in that they communicated concisely why a gag order would not be necessary in this case.

This story featured an "out of gas" kicker.  I normally don't think that these types of kickers are effective since they usually insinuate that the author didn't have anything better to end on and still needed to add in some extra facts, but I think that this article utilized the "out of gas" kicker very well.  Since there was no anecdotal or narrative element to the story, it didn't seem awkward for the article to end on facts.

All in all, I found the article to be most effective because it remained consistent to its audience and structure.

Article Analysis (Wk 7)

The article I'm analyzing can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/world/asia/28scene.html?_r=1&ref=world

The story is about the recent terrorist attacks on the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai.  While it may seem to be a typical hard news story, the article begins anecdotally, chronicling the night of a couple getting married at the hotel the night of the attacks.  

The lead reads:

"For Amit and Varsha Thadani, Wednesday night in the Crystal Ballroom of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel was supposed to be a night they would treasure forever: the lavish start of a life together, with a wedding reception for over 200 family and friends."

The nut graph immediately follows, recounting the specific times and locations of the very first gunshots in the building. 

The story progresses in an atypical format; it follows the structure of the Wall Street Journal formula most closely but not exactly since it ends on a different anecdotal lead than the one with which it begins.  Overall, however, I think that it adheres mainly to this formula since it begins anecdotally, progresses into harder facts, and ends anecdotally.

I found this to be extremely effective because it gave a more humanistic perspective to a story that could have been strictly hard news.  I do think it is important, however, to include some hard news facts in a story like this, and I finished reading the article not really knowing any specific details about what had happened in Mumbai last week. Although the story was captivating and easy to read, I thought that the author should have included some details of the event itself and not just the people whom it affected.

Article Analysis (Wk 6)

The article I'm analyzing can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/09/haiti.school.collapse/index.html

This story is about relatives and volunteers frantically searching for children after the collapse of a school in Haiti.  It's a pretty standard hard news story -- the lede is the first sentence, and the nut graph immediately follows the lede,

The lede reads:

"Frantic relatives of people believed trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school picked at the ruins with shovels and hammers Sunday before being pushed back by police amid new safety concerns."

The nut graph describes the setting of the accident, who is attempting to help, and what these people are trying to do.  The story unfolds in typical inverted pyramid fashion, beginning with the facts and progressing with the background story and quotations about the event.

The story ends on an "out of gas" kicker.  The author finishes the story with facts that he still needed to include but had no room for, and there is no connection between the final sentence and the rest of the story.

I thought that this story was effective in that it presented the news clearly and accurately, but I thought that there could have been more quotations in the story and that the author could have begun the story anecdotally and then continued with the facts.  Because it was immediately presented as strictly hard news, there was virtually no connection with the audience about a topic that was very sensitive. The only quotation that the article got from the President of Haiti was that the structure of the school was "really weak." 

In my opinion, more carefully picked quotations and a more sensitive, anecdotal approach would have made this story more effective and captivating.

Article Analysis (Wk 5)

The article I analyzed for this week can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/world/europe/09iceland.html?em

This article focuses on the financial crisis that recently occurred in Iceland, and is not a hard news story because it centers on the effects of the crisis rather than the straight facts of the crisis itself.

I found this article to be very effective primarily because of the way it began.  It began narratively, which I thought was very different and risky for a story like this but ultimately more compelling to read.  In a story that could easily be just about numbers, the author gave the audience a reason to care about what was happening in a remote country that most of us have no connection to.

Since the article is not written as a typical hard news story, the lede and nut graph are not immediately found in the first or second paragraph.  Instead, the lede is in the third paragraph:

"It is not as if Reykjavik, where about two-thirds of the country’s 300,000 people live, is filled with bread lines or homeless shanties or looters smashing store windows. But this city, until recently the center of one of the world’s fastest economic booms, is now the unhappy site of one of its great crashes. It is impossible to meet anyone here who has not been profoundly affected by the financial crisis."

The nut graph can be found in the following paragraph, providing the exact figures that illustrate the country's economic decline.

Overall, the story follows the Wall Street Journal formula, beginning with an anecdotal or soft news lead and eventually progressing into the hard news.

The article ends on a quote kicker, which  I found to be effective because it illustrates the impact of the financial crisis on the people, which is really what the story is about.

Article Analysis (Wk 4)

The full article I'm analyzing can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/world/americas/05colombia.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

This article is about a Colombian army commander resigning because of the recent suspicion about the ethics of the Colombian army.  It talks about the things he has done wrong in the past couple of months and eventually touches on other human rights violations that have recently occurred in Latin America.
This article is definitely a hard news story because it covers the resignation of the Colombian army commander after a scandal over the amount of civilians killed by Colombian armed forces in recent years.
The lede is definitely the first sentence: "The commander of Colombia’s army resigned Tuesday after an investigation tied dozens of military personnel under his command to an intensifying scandal over the killing of civilians by the armed forces in what apparently were attempts to inflate the number of insurgents or criminal gang members killed in combat by security forces."
It addresses who resigned, why they resigned, when it occurred, and where it occurred. The nut graph is in the following paragraph, where it elaborates on the facts that are addressed in the lede. The story definitely follows an inverted pyramid structure as well, because it gives the specific details of what the Colombian army and the commander have been doing to the country for months.

The story ends with a pretty standard quote kicker, which I think is effective because it's an issue on which readers must form their own opinions.  I also think the inverted pyramid structure is effective because it presents a complicated issue as simply as possible.  A story in ABAB structure would be much more confusing for this topic because names and policies of one country would get confused with those of another.

Overall, I thought it was an effective, unbiased article on a sensitive topic that was organized very well and easy to understand.