comm207fall06

Between now and our final exam Tuesday, Dec. 5, I will be posting example of well-written news stories. This is intended to help you sharpen your editorial eye for what's good, what's not, what needs to be changed and what doesn't. It is also intended to help you do better on the final, since I will ask you to evaluate a story for news value, quality of writing and any editorial changes you might want to make. I have been posting these stories since Thursday.

Read them over, because you'll also be asked to choose a story over the Thanksgiving holday, post it to the blog, link it and comment on it. Reading my posts will show you how to do yours.

Now here's a headline that just sort of grabs you and wraps itself around you ...

I spotted it earlier tonight on the BBC News website. At the top of its list of the "most e-mailed" stories were:

Snake bursts after gobbling gator
Murdoch cancels OJ Simpson plans
Uganda Aids education 'working'
Borat holds on at US box office
Microsoft eyes Office switch test

There's no way I could pass up that first headline. So I clicked on it, and got the following story. Turns out it was old news, an Associated Press story dated Oct. 5 out of Florida. The Beeb gave it a throwaway lede:

An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps.
The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park.

The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain in the swamps.

The python's remains with the victim's tail protruding from its burst midsection were found last week. The head of the python was missing.

The importance, or news value, of the story (such as it is) would be that the Burmese python is an invasive species in Florida. But I doubt that's why readers of the BBC website were so taken with it.

The story is just odd, bizzare.

If you get a story like that, there's no way you can liven it up with fancy writing. You don't have to. And you couldn't if you tried. Instead, you just play it straight.

And that's what the Beeb did.

Besides, with a headline like that, what else do you have to do?