Journalism, What the Frig?

How Celador Stood Up to a Bully in Taking Disney Down| The Wrap.com, By Dominic Patten

I read this article. Then I had to read it a second time to get what the hell they were talking about. It's like this person took the inverted pyramid that is the general consensus of form for jounalistic writing and played Jenga with it, remembered he had an article to write and used his Jenga-upped pyramid to write.

The inverted pyramid, a quick explanation, is a guide for format of an article. The journalist puts the most important information at the top of the article, then any details pertaining to the story go in all the successive paragraphs in order from most important to least important. A slightly longer description can be found here, on wikipedia. This can successfully be seen in this article from the New York Times and the same story written for the BBC. This is interesting because it's the same story with more or less the same information presented in each. The NYT article has more anecdotal information keeping the story entertaining that way. The BBC article has more numerical information which is interesting in comparison and more facts. Between these two, in my mind, the BBC is more valuable because of the the greater amount of numerical information.

When you look at both of those articles you can stop reading abut three or four paragraphs in and have the most important information and not missing any part of the true story. Now when you compare those stories to the one from The Wire about Disney, four paragraphs in you're only just getting to the information that you're seeing in that story. It's a bit different on the BBC article were every sentence is a paragraph, but if you read until 'perpetual flight' where it's bolded you get the important information of the story. If you choose not to read the entire story you've still read the most pertinent information.

When I look at The Wire article I want to know who Celador is, we learn that in the third paragraph with the littlest amount of information explaining who or what Celador is. In the fourth paragraph we get three overly used cliches, a sign of a weak writer. He uses 'shell game' and 'Hollywood underdog' and 'tip the scales.' Calling someone an underdog is so over played, and using three incredibly weak cliches is an insult to your readers. It doesn't need to be too high brow but use something that is more clever. I can think of few situations where cliches need to be in a new article.

Well, after the third paragraph where we learn who the hell Celador is I want to learn what Disney did. Oh, it's six paragraphs down after a poorly placed quote. Wait, that's quite distracting, who is this Stanton Stein? Oh, he settled with Disney about Home Improvement some years ago. He worked with Celador for a while, is he still working with Celador? Why was this not said before, or his stud quote left until after we've been told what Disney did wrong? Oh hay there studio jargon, what do you mean? I understand this may be a trade paper but a few more context clues would be helpful.

What Cliche?! Can I call you Clich? Cleesh? Aww, this one's inside a quotation, I guess it's fine. [Not really.] Alright! Only nine paragraphs in and we finally meet someone from Celador! He's only their CEO. Alright we're getting to the case, nope! I spoke too soon, an anonymous NYC-based marketing analysis interjects with something that's marginally useful! I don't get what the Tory Story 3 thing has to do with this case, but whatever.

13 paragraphs in we learn what Celador was seeking. 14 and 15 paint Michael Eisner to be a prick, especially he never showed up to court that day to argue he's more of a dick than a prick.

Oh hay, it's the Internet, let's use a second page! And another paragraph laden with cliches in paragraph 17. This writer loves paragraphs chocked full of cliches, doesn't he? And another vague quote, but I'll accept this one as anonymous because it's from a juror.

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My verdict on this article is the author scrambled what came across the journalism wire and added his cliches to make it seem like he wrote more of the story that he actually did. [The Wire I spoke of is the press release from some other reporter from the court. It used to be sent by telegraph, then fax and I'll assume now by Internet and e-mail.] It's shit like that that make people not want to pay for news, poor writing. It doesn't help that the author's name is a false link, it's just be colored blue.

Now, I just ranted, spewed words onto the Internet. I was not attempting any proper format, this is closer to five paragraph essay than journalism, but it's not that, it's all opinion. I don't understand who taught this guy to write, but he needs to go back to school and be taught how to not suck. I only got what the article said when I was making fun of it, and then it's still quite poorly written.

If I were to write this story I'd start be introducing Celadon and Disney in the first paragraph and I'd explain why Celadon took Disney to court. I'd move on to explain what self-dealing is, why it's bad and why this is a landmark case. I'd introduce Stein, possibly before explaining why who case is important for small production offices. I'd describe some of the more important court days, like the one given with Eister not showing up to defend Disney. I might not use the quote from the New York analyst. I'd end with the quote from the Celadon CEO, maybe, or some stupid anecdote or joke maybe.

That story written as I proposed is simple and to the point. It would explain what the situation was and why this is important, especially if Disney loses the appeal. It would also be a lot stronger because it isn't pussyfooting around the subject.

Jasmine P.