The three feature articles were distinctly different in the way the stories were told. The topic of the story was a determining factor of the style that the authors chose to adopt, as well as the reaction they wanted to achieve from their audience.
Romona Moore’s tragic murder case was very anecdotal, and was heavily tied to the point of view of her mother throughout the article. It was told in a chronological order, and invited the reader to be on the same track of the investigation, and named specific places, dates and times, as a huge emphasis of the article was the incredible delay and inaction in the whole investigation on the part of the authorities. The way it was written was very confronting, and visual details were embedded into the article to give the story life. Descriptions like ‘a dilapidated, partically burned-out, two and half story building’ and Romona’s hands wer tied behind her back, and she had a chain around her neck’ gave a very bleak depiction of the whole situation to evoke shock from the reader.
The article titled ‘Pearls before breakfast’ also made use of anecdotes to tell the story. From telling Joshua Bell’s beginnings as a child prodigy to the history of the violin, the anecdotes were the building blocks of the whole story as it gave it context. In providing these explanations and extra detail, it gave weight to the experiement that was being written about – that there is often more than meets the eye, or ear in this case. The author uses several different perspectives to tell the story, which made it interesting to read. From Bell’s reaction, to the comments of the passerby’s and spectators, the different witness accounts, tied together, made up the whole story.
The Black Friday article was probably my least favourite of the three readings. It was written like a long, descriptive, hard news story. It used direct quotations and the way the story flowed was more linear than the other two. It read more like an essay, than a feature story I would be inclined to sit down and be immersed in.
