Here’s a recent piece from the Talk of the Town section of the New Yorker. It;s compact, punchy and thoroughly New York. It’s a quick profile of a local character. Notice the detail, the quotes and the speed of the piece.
Comment as you wish but let me know what you think. Does it fit our beloved AP Style? If so, how so? If not, …well you get the idea.
13 responses so far ↓
Mitch // April 1, 2008 at 11:59 pm
This is an interesting piece. The idea of introducing a potential candidate for office is a strange one, but I like it. Catsimatidis definitely has that New York vibe about him, along with the rest of the story. Just like the city, it’s colorful, quick, and there’s all sorts of stuff to stare at. It’s has a “A Day In The Life Of…” feel to it, which is entertaining.
There doesn’t seem to really be any style to it. It seems more like observations strung together to create a word version of Catsimatidis (who seems to be a character in his own right.) I think this is a great example of how a piece doesn’t need style to be stylish….does that even make sense?
Caroline Stedman // April 2, 2008 at 1:42 am
This is a very light article that really jumps around, which I feel is intentional in order to convey the personality of Catsimatidis correctly. I don’t think every piece can fit AP style and convey the point it is trying to make – not every character can be constrained to that.
Lindsey Smith // April 2, 2008 at 2:45 am
The style is informal and conversational. McGrath almost just strings together a bunch of quotes. This piece says a lot about the possible mayor without the writer having to do much writing (again notice how much is quotes), though it does take some talent to pull this off. Its all over the place, which fits him, but was a bit hard to follow at times.
John Brenner // April 2, 2008 at 3:05 am
I didn’t think the story was written the way we are writing stories. There didn’t really seem to be a lede, nutgraf, or inverted pyramid scheme to it. One way he didn’t follow AP style was that he spelled out numbers higher than nine. The piece didn’t really say anything about his political beliefs, other than he switched parties. I found this strange, since the article was about him running for office.
Eric // April 2, 2008 at 3:54 am
This isn’t written the way we’ve been writing stories for two and a half months. It seems to me that this is written kind of like a get-to-know-you piece. It gives the background of the future candidate for Mayor of New York City, and the rest of the story is quotes and attempting to set the scene when he is giving the quote. It tries to inform the reader about what Catsimatidis is like in a day in age where this seems just as important as his policies. Lastly, I really enjoyed reading this piece, which is more than I can say for most candidate profiles.
Morgan // April 2, 2008 at 3:55 am
I definitely agree with Caroline…this piece really exemplifies Catsimatidis’s personality. You can almost hear the New York accent.
I really enjoyed all the small details (the stain on the pocket, the note on the coffee machine). It was almost like McGrath had ADD…but it made the article more lively.
I don’t think this piece follows the AP style, but I don’t think it needs to. For the topic, I think this is the best way to write it.
Sarah Raaii // April 2, 2008 at 6:16 am
No, McGrath’s piece doesn’t necessarily follow strict AP style, but I can’t see this topic fitting into the inverted pyramid. Even if it were forced into such a rigid structure, it would be unnatural and not as effective as it is now.
Still, I noticed that the first sentence gives us a great mini-biography of Catsimatidis. It isn’t just out of the blue, but it isn’t a hard news lead, either.
I loved the natural flow of this article. The transitions between quotes were seamless, and I think this set the quick pace for this light profile.
sarah van // April 2, 2008 at 6:44 am
I really like the way this article was put together. It was more like a story than a typical news article because of the longer grafs. I think the longer grafs are what sets it apart from AP Style, and also that one graf doesn’t necessarily have only one central idea.
The fun, flowing pace of this story makes me think of this man as a funny, out-of-the-ordinary businessman that I would want to meet and joke around with just by the way it is written.
Molly // April 2, 2008 at 7:21 am
I don’t think this story necessarily follows the exact AP style, but I do think it deals with some important info right off the bat. Its a very descriptive profile, going into detail about the stains on his shirt and of all of the photographs in the room.
Alissa Langford // April 2, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I don’t see the AP style followed in this story, because it was not straight to the point, and rather gave a bit of background information before telling us what the point of the story was. It is very descriptive and I felt I could see him in his office. Catsimatidis seems to lean more left than right, so it will be interesting if he will be able to run in that political party.
Sara Jones // April 2, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I agree that this story didn’t really follow the AP style that we’ve been using, but I thought it flowed really smoothly in it’s informal style, and I think it gave a good idea of what this guy’s personality is like.
Haley Metcalf // April 2, 2008 at 11:04 pm
This story doesn’t quite follow the AP structure we’ve learned in class, but I like it. The background info makes sense at the beginning and the rest of the story flows together nicely. It seems to switch pace and jump around a bit, which works to keep the reader’s attention. I like the final quote (kicker) at the end where Catsimatidis talks about being cropped out of a picture. The story seems to give you a more personal feel for his character.
Amanda Bailey // April 7, 2008 at 2:01 am
From this piece, I get a feeling similar to sitting in a huge room where there are a million things going on at once. That seems to be the approach that McGrath uses in this piece. It doesn’t really fit the AP Style, but I definitely think the piece still works really well. Even though it jumps back and forth between ideas, the details are spot on and totally engaging.