Early this morning at about 3:30 am, Travis Reiking of Morton, Illinois, entered a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee, and open fired on its occupants using an AR-15. This attack left four dead and several others injured. The shooting stopped only because of the heroics of a customer who disarmed Reiking and told him to leave. Reiking left but not before shedding his coat. He fled in the nude eventually picking up a pair of black pants. He is location is currently unknown and police have asked anyone who sees him to call them.
The Washington Post tended not to use "big" words to add a touch of drama to their report. Author Kristine Phillips tended to not add any emotion to her reporting and focused on all the facts (like a normal news source should). By ignoring the opportunity to utilize emotions to her advantage she has shown she is more interested in the story rather than the responses it receives. She does however relate this shooting to one that occurred in a church in the same area in September that left one woman dead and several others injured.
At CNN author Holly Yan tends to use bigger, and more drastic sounding words to illustrate the true awfulness of this event. Alongside her usage of facts and simple statements, Yan utilizes words and phrases to draw emotions from her readers. For example, she says that he was "wielding" an AR-15 while the Washington Post simply says carrying. The usage of the word "wielding" automatically reminds one of guns or objects used to hurt others. The word "carnage" is also thrown around quite a bit to really push that idea that horrors were seen in this shooting.
I also did my media blog on the differences between two articles on the Waffle House shooting. I actually found some of the same things you did (despite using two different websites). One of the articles I read used big, professional words, while the other was short and simple.
ReplyDeleteGood post!