Reading Journal No. 2

In response to The New York Times’ “FDA to Severely Restrict Avandia, Citing Heart Risk” and The Guardian’s “Diabetes drug Avandia suspended over health fears”
With this week’s reading journal I decided to continue to focus on the news lede, but also take in consideration the use of quotes which we talked a bit about in Wednesday’s class. In today’s paper, the breaking news about Avandia was the first or one of the first headlining stories for the New York Times and The Guardian.

Gardiner Harris, journalist for the New York Times had a decent news lede: “WASHINGTON—In a highly unusual coordinated announcement, drug regulators in Europe and the US said Thursday that Avandia, the controversial diabetes medicine, would no longer be widely available.” The 5 W’s can be identified, but the use of adjectives like “highly unusual” and “controversial” really throws me off. It makes me think, “was the announcement really that unusual?” But compared to Dennis Campbell and Julia Kollewe, journalists for The Guardian, started the news story with a much weaker news lede (if you can even consider it to be one): “Around 90,000 British diabetes patients were warned against continuing to use one of the most popular treatments for their condition after regulators ruled it could lead to heart attacks or stroke.” With only informing us with maybe 3 of the W’s, Harris did a far better job in luring the readers to continue reading the news story.

Now on to the quotes, both news stories included primary quotes. The Times quoted Dr. Margaret Hamburg, an F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Jane Woodcock, director of the F.D.A.’s drug center, Dr. Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who studied the about Avandia’s heart attack risks, and Dr. Clifford Rosen, a member of the advisory panel that met in July. Just by reading their titles you can’t help but believe what they are quoted saying.

With the Guardian though, there was only two primary sources, Professor Kent Woods, the agency’s chief executive and Simon O’Neill of the charity Diabetes UK. Based on the length of the story, approximately 600 words, two primary sources seem enough. Plus, the quotes that were used were strong enough to support the story.

I also noticed that the majority of the quotes were “stand-alone” or their own paragraph, but if not some quotes were used at the end of a paragraph.

On a final note, The New York Times’ article seems to take inconsideration for ALL diabetes patients while The Guardian focuses on British diabetes patients. It makes me think, do certain newspapers focus on one group of people?