Localizing the Inauguration

This article is a good example of localizing a story by taking an event as huge as the presidential inauguration and making it relevant to the Red & Black’s audience, which is university students and faculty. The actual event took place in Washington D.C., but the article utilizes proximity to make it relevant to the reader by gathering reactions to Obama’s inauguration and speech from various students and one faculty member. The article was also an example of timeliness, as it was published the day after the event.

I understand that the article was probably hastily put together to make it to print; however, I felt that more could be done to flesh out the story. I would have liked some mention of crowd reactions during the speech and more observation of the surroundings. For example, I stumbled across this feature on the Grady Journal website and I found those writers' takes on the local reaction across Athens much more engaging and interesting. The writers for the Grady Journal were probably allowed more creative freedom in that format as opposed to the newspaper story, but I liked how the features really put the reader in the scene, which I felt was missing from the Red & Black article.

Also, the first sentence of the story was too long and awkwardly phrased. I think the writer would have been better off just using the actual lede that followed instead of setting it up in that manner. I thought that this Athens Banner-Herald article taking a similar angle to the election story was better executed. The writer also chose to set up the lede, but he made it personal in a way which draws the reader in. Also, the article itself was more organized and fluid. Overall, I feel that the Red & Black story could have been more successful, but I think that conceptually it was appropriate, adequate, and grammatically correct.