Julia Kent

9/10/19

002611529

JOUR 230 Digital News Gathering

News Critique:

NPR's Up First is a morning podcast that gives listeners the news they need to start their

day. They share the biggest stories of the day ranging from politics to pop culture. This podcast is

hosted by Rachel Martin, David Greene, Noel King, and Steve Inskeep. These reporters main

objective is to inform their listeners on what is going on in the news at the beginning of the day

so that they start their day in the know.

NPR’s Up First episode on Monday, September 9th began with reporting on the

President’s meeting with the Taliban at Camp David that was canceled due to another terrorist

attack that impacted U.S. soldiers. They also discussed the legal action facing Purdue Pharma’s

opioid crisis. As the company files for bankruptcy, Up First discusses how states plan to sue the

family connected to Purdue. And finally, they updated listeners on evacuations in the Abaco

Islands due to the impact of Hurricane Dorian.

One of the main strengths of this podcast is that they report in a way that is easy for

listeners to visualize, but also in a concise, quick manner. They report with accuracy and show no

bias through their reporting style, rather they state the facts and inform listeners. They also gave

a lot of details for a short podcast of only 14 minutes. Each topic is discussed fully and as a

listener, I felt like I finished the podcast with a strong knowledge of each topic. The only

weakness I heard was that sometimes they could elaborate more on background info about each
topic. Overall, this podcast was very informative and met its objective as a podcast that informed

listeners with the news they needed to start their day in a concise, and clear way.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on comedy central is a news segment that tackles the

biggest news stories, but with a comedic angle. Alongside Noah is a few other reporters called

“The World's Fakest News Team” who help to cover an array of topics such as politics, pop

culture and more. I decided to watch this kind of a news piece because since I listened to such a

serious news podcast by NPR, I wanted to experience the news in a different way and with a

more light-hearted feel.

On this most recent episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on September 9th,

Trevor began by giving political updates through a segment he calls, “President Trump's latest

Beefs”. Through this, he explained every political decision Trump had made in the past week and

showed through comedy how each situation involved a “beef” he had with someone else. Next,

Michael Kosta and Jaboukie Young-White talked sports with all of the biggest stories in NFL,

MLB, and other organizations. The final part of the show included an appearance by"Queer Eye"

star Antoni Porowski who discussed his new cookbook "Antoni in the Kitchen”.

One of the major strengths of this newscast was that the comedy aspect made the news

engaging for listeners. Often the news can seem boring to some listeners and almost irrelevant to

our everyday life, but, with this show I was thoroughly interested in what he was broadcasting

and the show made me realize the news doesn’t always have to be “sad” or “depressing”.

However, I would say that this way of reporting makes certain situations more comedic when it

is a topic that should be taken seriously. Another weakness I saw was that Noah was very clear in

his bias and you could tell what political side he was trying to portray. This can lead to the whole
story not being told, however, the overall the point of the show is to make people laugh while

informing them about the important things happening in our world, therefore I think it does the

job wonderfully.

Can Dancing Prevent Dementia? is an article in the Wall Street Journal by Sumathi

Reddy that informs readers how different forms of exercises can affect different parts of the brain

and how that can impact one's chances of developing dementia. As someone who has seen

multiple family members suffer from dementia and Alzheimers, this piece interested me. I have

also been dancing since I was 3 years old, so I felt intrigued to read about how my passion could

impact a disease as terrible as dementia.

This article discusses a current study researching to see if dancing versus walking on a

treadmill has more of an impact on dementia. The article discussed how there have been studies

in the past regarding dance and better brain activity however nothing was concrete. There were

definite benefits, but they couldn’t say with 100% certainty that it was a better form of exercise.

However, many members and their families in the study saw a major difference in their life

already, and the members felt better and stronger too.

One of the strengths of this article was painting the picture of what these seniors were

doing while they were dancing. The author did a great job showing how dance affected the

seniors and how it could be beneficial. She also did a great job of incorporating the study into

this picture she painted naturally. One of the weaknesses I saw was that the title was misleading

as the article didn’t answer the questions fully. The article makes it seem like the findings are

conclusive but you never receive a formative answer on how dancing impacts dementia. The
author gives some facts and describes the experience but she never reports the findings on the

study.

Yet, this article did a wonderful job showing how we can do different activities in our

lives that can help lead to a healthier life when we get to an older age. All three of these forms of

news differed, however one can see similarities through the reporting styles of each story.
 Work Cited

Comedy Central, http://www.cc.com/episodes/9ybhz1/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-

september-9--2019---antoni-porowski-season-24-ep-24150.

NPR, 9 Sept. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758941352/afghanistan-talks-cancelled-

purdue-pharma-lawsuits-bahamas-recovery-efforts.

Reddy, Sumathi. “Can Dancing Prevent Dementia?” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones &

Company, 19 Aug. 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-dancing-prevent-

dementia-11566223731.