My ‘angle’ into the story as a journalist was the emotive content. The main focus of the article was in remembrance of Gerard Iero and everything he had achieved in archaeology. I consider the most important concept in the article to be the fact that he died, so I focused mostly on his death in the title and the first, second and last paragraphs. Having said in simple terms what happened in the first two paragraphs, in the next five paragraphs I went on to further explain his life and some of the more significant things that had made him such an important person to the Adelaide Museum and to many of the families in Adelaide. The people who found the story interesting would continue to read past the first few paragraphs to find out more about his life and his abundant archaeological discoveries. Paragraph four is a quote from his wife talking about how he first discovered the dinosaur bones. This would have been a pivotal point in his life so I thought it would be necessary to include this in the article. Paragraph five is his brother’s memory of Gerard as a child, it mentions how he was always interested in digging and finding things in the sandpit in the park; this is a very important paragraph because it tells the reader how Gerard was always interested in archaeology, which gives the reader an idea that he loved what he did, and that he had always been passionate about it. This is backed up later in the article when the curator talks about it. This follows the ‘inverted pyramid’ model of news reports. Building the story in this way does contain a certain amount of bias; there is nothing negative said about Gerard so this story sheds a very positive light on the work and life of Gerard. I thought this view was appropriate because considering that he had just passed away no one would have appreciated negative things being said about him, considering all that he had done for the Adelaide museum and archaeology.
The fist job of a journalist and the editor is to choose a title that would grab the attention of the readers. I did this through having a fairly large picture and a heading that gives the reader enough information for them to become intrigued, and make them want to find out what happened in more depth. The paper is giving the story some prominence so the headline is quite large and takes up the whole top line of the page, so if someone is skimming through the paper the larger headline will catch their eye. The photo that is with the article shows one of the major achievements of Gerard’s life. This picture was chosen because it shows the readers some of what he discovered and gives readers a picture to show how much of a huge discovery the skull was. The words chosen for the headline, “Adelaide’s Favourite Archaeologist Dies,” are simple and informative. The words were chosen so that any person reading the article would not get offended, but there is enough information in the headline to inform anyone who was just skimming through the paper of what happened.
This picture was chosen because it shows the readers some of what he discovered and it gives the readers a picture to show how much of a huge discovery the skull was.
Having grabbed the readers’ attention with the headline and the image, the article is written in a quite heartfelt yet informative manner. I wrote the article to inform the public of what happened, whilst still being careful not to offend any members of his family or friends. In keeping with the language used in the title and the simplicity of the photo used. Simple language was used throughout most of the article, with almost no descriptive language used. Everything that is said is quite factual and concise, nothing is exaggerated or over-dramatised because it is unnecessary in a story of this manner. The quotes were added to personalise the story, to make the readers’ realise that he was a real person. Having his family members speak their memories gives the readers some insight to what sort of man he was and how sorely he will be missed.
However, this article is still an emotive piece. It was written so that if someone read the first few paragraphs they would understand what had happened, and that if they chose to read on they would gain a deeper understanding of his impact in archaeology. The inclusion of quotes adds emotive content to the facts. Some phrases I use also try to affect the emotions of the readers for example “after a long battle with pancreatic cancer;” and “a terrible loss.”
This article has been written in a very simple way, the language used is very simple, and there is no exaggeration of any of the facts. It has been written simply to inform the general public of what happened to Gerard Iero.
