From exploring Timeline and the versatility of them within news stories, I have found that they can either be really effective or really irrelevant. In the story “Police seek Houston teacher impregnated by student, 13”, I found the use of the timeline to be ineffective and not used well. The timeline in this story had several faults, including: lack of a strong chronological narrative, didn’t relate back to a larger narrative, and it didn’t really have any events that built up to the major occurrence. However, I think the article was also lacking, which played into the timeline being weak.
I had first clicked on this article because of the “tabloid-like” appeal. When looking for news, I tend to be draw to articles that are weird or absurd or “defy the norm”. So, when I saw a headline that mentioned that a teacher was pregnant by a 13-year-old I was drawn to the absurdity and the scandal. However, upon reading the story, I was highly disappointed with the reporting or lack thereof.
The lead did grab my attention, but it didn’t provide me with the timeliness of the news; which I felt was necessary when including a timeline. The author tried to pull me in with the absurdity and in some ways it worked, but in some ways it didn’t. I would’ve appreciated if the author would’ve explained why the story was relevant to me or if the story related to a larger epidemic of teachers having sexual relationships with students in the Houston area.
There was a semi-nutgraph in the sixth paragraph, but it really didn’t add anything new to the story that hadn’t already been mentioned. The nut graph would’ve been a great place for the author to add larger context to the story or to relate the story to the timeline, but unfortunately this didn’t happen. If I were to re-write this story, I would’ve utilized the nut-graph to tie this story to the timeline used or at least to the larger epidemic of sexual relationships between teachers and students in recent years.
Overall, I felt like this story could’ve been very interesting and, perhaps, pointed towards a larger epidemic. Unfortunately, it fell short and didn’t really work in a timeline format. If I would’ve been given the opportunity to re-do this article then I would’ve utilized the timeline to show a trend in sexual relationships between teachers and students, quoted more people than just a bystander from the school, and I would’ve tried to make the story relatable to my audience in the nut graph.
JOUR377-Lewis 