Article 1: National Geographic, “Restless Genes”
The piece explores whether humans are genetically geared towards migration and exploration, as modern humans have covered more ground in 50,000 years than any other species has been found to in millions of years.
The lead featured hard facts and dates, but skillfully hooked the reader with enough detail to intrigue, but not enough to answer any of the questions it brought up. While the piece begun with some background about the process of exploration itself, telling about James Cook, an 18th Century explorer, it quickly segues into a description of human exploration and migration and the study of them today. There wasn’t as much of an emphasis on a physical “scene” so much as the act of exploration.
The writer details his own dialogue with researchers and professors that he talked to, lending the piece an investigative feel – parts of it read almost like a journal or a thought process, which I enjoyed because the whole subject is still being figured out, so the article didn’t come across as condescending, but rather like the author was sharing the information they had learned.
The piece was supported by many interviews of University researchers and professors, and was full of facts and statistics. The sources tended to stray from the direct point of the article and go into more detailed evolutionary philosophy, which was a little dense but overall relevant because the article talks about migration and exploration from a genetic perspective.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/restless-genes/dobbs-text
Article 2: Register-Guard, “A Moveable Feast”
The story features two people who run the 28th and Friendly food truck, “Party Cart.”
The lead is a bit cliche, and doesn’t stress anything remarkable about the cart. I found it weak. The writer provides good background – not an overwhelming history of the pair’s past in the food industry, but enough about how each of them came to be where they are. She sets the scene by describing the location and focusing on detailed images of the food that the vendors serve and the process they go through to make it. The quotes are supportive of the story and a few stand out in highlighting the unique features of the cart, such as when one owner, Tiffany Norton, notes how one of their friends described their food as “just weird enough and just comfortable enough.” The author doesn’t cite any outside sources, but they do a nice, thorough interview of the two owners, Norton and Mark Kosmicki.
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