Article Critique 9/9

ARTICLE CRITIQUE/Caleb Waldron 1

ARTICLE FALLS SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS

By Caleb Waldron

The following is a critique of the November 9, 2007 New York Times article “Thousands of Police Block Pakistan Rally,” accessible through the link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/world/asia/10pakistan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

I find that while this article does relay the facts and implications of political turmoil in Pakistan, its contradictions, lack of sourcing, inclarity, and poor grammar detract from the story as a whole.

While the story’s lede does accurately capture the rising tension between the Palestinian government and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, it doesn’t touch upon the situation’s implications or context. The reader is presented with cold facts, but not with a motivation to discover their signifigance.

The article also houses an apparent contradiction. While the article’s fourth paragraph on the second page mentions that Bhutto’s house arrest may be a face saving gesture for the government, the work’s last paragraph states that the situation poses problems for the government. These statements are especially conflicting due to a lack of sourcing or supporting evidence to their validity. The writer merely sources the analysis to “analysts” instead of providing their name or rank.

This article’s grammar is also of poor quality. The writer begins the seventh paragraph of the second page with the a conjunction, fails to place end quotation marks on the first paragraph of the second page, and awkwardly slaps together four seperte clauses in the tenth paragraph of the first page. This crates an impression of sloppy and disorganized writing.

Overall, this is a poorly written journalistic piece.

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