The impact and a good article

Inquiry: Find an article that has impact on you because of the sources, speech and reporting, and discuss why it is an example of good journalism or media writing. 

Malaysia Airlines plane MH17 ‘shot down’ on Ukraine-Russia border
By Charis Chang

First and foremost, this article gives a summary of what it is about to address.

• Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over eastern Ukraine
• Surface-to-air missile used
• 27 Australians were among the 298 on board
• Pro-Russian separatists blamed, but have denied attack
• The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur

These are all great talking points.  They each address relevant issues and allow a reader to gain knowledge of the situation at a glance. 

When quoting Tony Abbot, Chang quoted him exactly as was explained in the text and readings for this week (Ames, 2014a).

 In an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell this morning, Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the incident as an “unspeakable crime”.
“This is not something that can just be dismissed as a tragic accident, when you have Russian proxies with Russian supplied equipment if this turns out to be the case.
“At the moment we can only say the indications are this way. But nevertheless this is no small matter indeed (Chang 2014).”

The entire article is broken up into subheadings.  A reader can skim through the article and read in more depth the areas they found most interesting.

The article included text, images and video to tell the story to its readers.

In conclusion, the article was written in a way that addressed the Who, What, Where, When, and How immediately.  It was coherent, concise and over all a very well written article (Ames, 2014c).



REFERENCES

Ames, K., 2014a,  Module 5: Voice, Attribution and Acknowledgement, Course notes, COMM11007 Media Writing: CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au.

Ames, K., 2014b. Module 3: Identifying News, Course notes, COMM 11007 Media Writing: CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/.

Ames, K., 2014c. Module 4: The Basic News Story, course notes, COMM11007 Media Writing: CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/.

Hicks, W., 2013. English for journalists. 4th ed. New York: Routledge pp 93-98.

Whitaker, W. R., Ramsey, J. E. & Smith, R. D., 2012. Media Writing, print broadcast and public relations. 4th ed. New York: Routledge pp 161-186 & 297-318.