What I loved about Jennifor Senior’s article about Bobby Mcllvaine was the emotional, narrative structure that fluttered between past and present. The use of quotes was in a way that was engaging, and the rest of the account was descriptive in just the right way; not too flowery, so as to become convoluted and lose the readers interest (as I think happened a bit in Katie Engelhart’s dementia article towards the end), but still detailed enough to build a specific picture in the reader’s mind. More than an article, this was a story that blended an investigation into the aftermath of Bobby’s death with narrative character development of the individual’s closest to him; his parents and ex-girlfriend. The focus on these characters displayed one of the key motifs of the article; how each individual coped with grief in their own way, through their backstories which are developed in the article. I enjoyed the timeline she utilized, the way that Bobby’s life was recounted intermittently all whilst using the story of the unrecovered diary as the element that tied the narrative and structure of the article. 

Nadja Drost’s article on the Darien gap, however, employed this narrative structure in order to address a wider societal point through shining the light on individuals, which is in many ways the point of journalism. What I enjoyed about the Darien gap article was how it weaved other, seemingly less related to migration aspects of the Darien gap’s broader history that contextualized it, and really embedded the danger of this zone in a way that I don’t think was transmitted in other articles I’ve read. What really tied these articles together was the character driven structure, which, understandably made them more gripping to read compared to if they had been more focused on the facts and history. I think these articles’ strengths were in interweaving the ‘news’ inbetween the stories of these individuals, using scene-based narratives, chronological progression and encaptivating descriptions. 

The moral calculations of a billionaire also used an individual story to talk about a wider societal issue; in this case, narratives around billionaires and taxing their wealth. Rather than following a storyline like the first two articles, I enjoyed the use of Leon Cooperman’s daily routine as a framing device as well as his direct perspectives scattered as a way to structure and focus the article. In this way, we got a view of the issue from the billionaire himself, down to the structure of what was being focused on. I liked the writing style here too. The sentences weren’t too long, and there was variety (eg- The market fell. The market rose…), making it a more interesting read. Not to bring up the dementia article again but to me there wasn’t this kind of variety in that article, and it did become a bit uninteresting towards the end (also it was extremely long and a bit drawn out, I thought). This variety (in the millionaire piece) also extended to paragraph length. I think what I also took away from it is that speech doesn’t have to be blockaded in the middle of a wider paragraph, as a way to introduce analysis or support it. It can stand on its own, in its own paragraph, bring more to the article – and make it a better read.