Stephen Colbert on Migrant Workers

As we have been studying the ways in which one must, to write an effective hard news story back up your news lede with sufficient evidence I took extra time this week to concentrate on one story that seemed after several readings to remain for the most part neutral about the nature of the situation whilst remaining true to what it was like to be there. The story was about Stephen Colbert who testified before the House immigration subcommittee about the migrant workers. What struck me the most was that the author (Ashley Parker) was willing to make statements that seemed to make assumptions about how certain people at the conference where feeling and what they were thinking. From my understanding this was a very dangerous line to walk for Parker however I think that she did it quite well. The reason I think that her report was so effective at communicating to me a sense of trust was that she incorporated quotes after all of her statements from the conference which certainly validated her claims. Furthermore, I was impressed by the way that the story didn’t feel bogged down with too many quotes partially because she chose to use a lot of fragments. I know that usually one is advised against this, but I was happy to find a situation in which it seemed to be an entirely appropriate method of validation. I can see that it might have effected the integrity of the article had I felt that the quotes were being taken out of context. But her use of them made it flow nicely and it seemed to be a genuine report.

Now some examples. Firstly, she made the claim that ‘a Michigan Democrat, seemingly miffed, suggested that Mr. Colbert “excuse yourself” from speaking’. This quote on first glance was for me a stretch because of the description of the democrat as “miffed”. But with the qualification of ‘seemingly’ and the quote that followed I felt sufficiently confident that he was indeed annoyed at the situation. Another situation in which I was reassured by a quotation was when Parker made the following claim: ‘On the whole, the mood of the hearing alternated between the serious and the absurd.’ This was followed by two quotes, which Colbert gave to the committee after being questioned. The first was ‘(the) “obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables — and if you look at the recent obesity statistics you’ll see that many Americans have already started.”’ And the second was later in the report: ‘“I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights themselves,” he said. “Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”’ These quotes each embody one aspect of her claim about the nature of the conference thus legitimizing her claim.

While I do believe that this was a good article overall I was still concerned by some of the statements which had no really or insufficient backing such as ‘Five minutes later, much to the disappointment of the crowd, Mr. Colbert was done.’ Unfortunately there was no mention of what the crowd actually did or said to make her think that it was indeed the case that they were disappointed to see him go. For all I know they might have been eager to get him out of there for fear he would sully the legitimacy of their cause.