Critique of Friday edition of The Parthenon 9/19

Critique of Friday edition 9/19 of The Parthenon

 

Front page:

The students in charge of the front page always do a magnificent job on the Friday edition of The Parthenon. The quotes from the stories they preview on the front page always draw the reader in and force them to read the story to find out what the context of the quote is in regards to the story. The big background imagine is always great and depicts the main topic for the paper. The quotes and headlines are free of error and correctly follow AP style. Another great front page by The Parthenon staff.

Second page:

The article above the fold regarding the new Visual Arts Center was a well-written article with a few mistakes. I would relocate the location of the building, which lead off the lead sentence. I would move it into the second paragraph. A redundant phrase in the fourth paragraph should also be deleted. The quality of sources is good for the story, but could use a little more depth in reporting. The actual space of the new building could be provided compared to the old one and a bit more on the overall design of the building and what went into that design and construction.

The second article on Runway Couture was also free of a great deal of errors and AP style mistakes. A few unnecessary words toward the end of the story and the lead is a tad long and should be split up accordingly. The reporting of the story is fairly good and the quality of sources is good as well.

The headline for the VAC story is a little cliché. A good headline, but cliché. But, the headlines for both stories are of quality and so is the pictures and captions on the page.

Third page:

The article on the painting of the fiberglass bison by sophomore Brianna Jarvis is a good story. It is a little short though. It could have touched more on how much work and what work went into the painting. The reporting was good and had numerous sources including Jarvis. But, it could have been a little more detailed.

The second article on the page is about people’s memories with the building in which the new VAC is in. I do not think it answers the so what questions. I do not think readers are really interested in the topic. It is a good story and touching, but does it really answer the who cares question? I do not believe so. The author failed to mention whether one of the main sources in the article is from Marshall, or just a random person associated with the building. That would help the story make more sense. The use of a pull quote was a nice touch and brought out why the building meant so much to Michelle Tobey.

The pictures and headlines on the page are good and do not need rewriting. At the bottom of the page a typo on who designed the page occurred. Instead of “.edu” for the email of the designer it is .”eduw.” and shouldn’t have been missed.

Fourth page:

This page was entirely dedicated to the Marshall vs. Akron on Saturday. The article on the page detailing the game had a few more mistakes than the other articles in the paper. The lead was too long and should have been split and made into two separate paragraphs. An unneeded sentence regarding Holliday’s comments on Akron should be deleted as Holliday said the same thing in his quote. The author mentioned the classes of the offensive Akron players, but didn’t do so on the defensive side. An unnecessary word in “exactly” and another unneeded phrase towards the end should be deleted to keep the article concise. The article was accompanied by a graphic detailing the statistics for both Marshall and Akron on both sides of the ball. A good page overall with good headlines, graphics and captions.

Fifth page:

The fifth page was mostly consumed by a large graphic detailing the schedule for a Community Open House event and the VAC opening. There were no errors and AP style mistakes in the graphic. Same for the pictures and the captions about the event. The article on page three regarding the memories of the building the VAC is in jumped to this page as well. So, not much content to edit on the page.

Page Six (Back page):

The back page of this edition is ads for churches in the area. As long as the ads were created by the churches editors should not have to worry about grammar, but should check anyway to be certain the ads are 100 percent correct. The page is well layed-out and is fair as it provides information on a number of churches from different denominations.

 

Overall another good issue from The Parthenon staff. Headlines, pictures and captions were all nice, well-designed and well-written. There could have been more stories in the issue, but they did a good job filling in the space with relevant content. It was a good issue detailing visual arts on campus and not focusing solely on football or sports in general. No major macro issues minus the memories story on the VAC. But, not major AP style mistakes, spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.