Week 10, Derrek Ballard

This week's homework was fun for me because I would love to write for a newspaper (specifically in the sports section) so these assignments were great practice.  I've always been interested in the way news article titles and leads are written because they have to grab the reader's attention and supply the basic information without being deceiving about the article's contents.

I was actually on the websites of Fox13 and KSL this morning going through the article titles and leads to apply what we have learned this week.  One of my favorites is from the KSL website below:

Suspected robber killed by police pleaded guilty in drug case 5 days earlier

This title contains everything we learned this week from the PowerPoint presentation:

• The essential elements of the story are told, as well as the most unusual (the suspect was killed right after pleading guilty).
• The most important thing was discussed first (that the suspect was killed).
• It uses the Subject-Verb-Object form (subject suspected robber, verb killed, object police).
• It's short and only one sentence.

The editing mistake I found this week came from my Facebook feed as always, but fits great into this week's cirriculum.  It's a news article title from a small website:

Man Drove 600 Miles To Listen To Cubs Win With His Father At His Grave, Keeping His Promise

My biggest issue with this title is the last part "Grave, Keeping His Promise."  It doesn't seem very clear if the man, his father, or even the Cubs are the ones keeping a promise.  Also, the only word that should be capitalized is "Man" (well, as "Cubs") as newspaper titles should be capitalized the same way you would capitalize a sentence.  I would have probably made this read "Man drives 600 miles to enjoy the Cubs' big win at his father's grave" and then I would have included the details in the article.