“The Face of Facebook” by Jose Antonio Vargas, The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/20/100920fa_fact_vargas?currentPage=all

I was not exactly at the edge of my seat when I read the lead of this profile story. This was perhaps because the profile topic did not need an engaging lead to make the reader want to read more about the subject. I chose this article to analyze because it was on a person every Internet user knows: Mark Zuckerberg.

What struck me the most about this article was how involved the reporter, Jose Antonio Vargas, was not only behind the scenes, but in the actual article as well. First person language was used quite frequently in the article and I was sort of confused as to what the point of that was. The reasoning became clear when there were parts in the article that would be difficult to explain without including the reporter’s presence. The most significant part was when Vargas was discussing the sharing of personal information with others and how his own sexual orientation was revealed to many people because of Facebook.

I enjoyed the modest ways that Vargas used to describe Zuckerberg’s personality, but his work ethic and business goal as well. From the beginning, Vargas states that Zuckerberg’s goal was to make the Internet and social media more “open.” One example of Vargas’ execution of describing this concept was when he described Facebook’s office building in Palo Alto, Ca. He described the office as one giant room with many tables, instead of cubicles. He also made a point of mentioning that Zuckerberg’s desk was in the middle of the entire room. I also loved how Vargas compared Zuckerberg’s way of speaking with “instant messaging: brusque, flat as dial tone.”

The language and tone of the article was appropriate and well done. A lot of the times, articles are too cluttered with fancy language and sometimes clouds and distracts from the actual point. I thought this article did a pleasant job of being straight and to-the-point about everything he discussed.

I appreciated the many, many sources that Vargas included to help color and support the story. However, he used the sources in places that I felt it would be better if the profile subject spoke for himself. For example, a fair amount of the profile was dedicated to addressing how Zuckerberg was accused of stealing ideas from his former friends and employees. Instead of showing Zuckerberg’s response (if any), he relied on Facebook’s vice president of product to speak on his behalf.

The ending of the article was well done. Although it mentioned the reporter, it was a good summation of the type of person Zuckerberg is. Ironically, the profile concluded by making Zuckerberg seem more mysterious when the point of a profile article is to reveal rather than further the lack of knowledge the reader had to begin with.

“A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds” by Andrea Elliott, New York Times

http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7138

I absolutely loved this profile. Although it was not perfectly executed, in my opinion it was an excellent example of what a profile article is supposed to do. It introduced me to a person that I never really thought of that represented a larger issue in society.

It is a story about one of America’s imams (a religious confidante), Sheik Reda Shata, an Egyptian Muslim man who immigrated to America after the Sept 11 attacks. Although it was a story about this particular religious man, it was a window into the lives of a religion that is so easily stereotyped and overlooked in today’s society. It not only depicted what I hope was an accurate portrayal, but it also exposed the constant friction the religion had with the cultural customs of the Western world.

The narrative structure was the most significant and striking aspect of this article. It began setting the scene and describing Shata’s appearance and normal day-to-day activities, which included sorting through others’ problems and leading prayer. It then transitioned to his childhood history and background up until the point where he moved to America to be an imam for the people in the Brooklyn area. Each anecdote swirled around another aspect of dealing with conflicting world cultures and in my opinion, was done very well.

It was the ending scene that I felt was very interesting. It ended with the author Andrea Elliott reporting that Shata collapsed during prayer in a mosque. It was interesting how the entire article built up all this tension to the end where Shata suffered from “compassion fatigue.”

I thought the author’s decision to describe Shata sporadically throughout the article was very interesting. I think it kept the reader interested, and would give a breath of life into the story every time you found out something new about Shata. For example, Elliott only started describing his personality until the middle of the article and described his actual take on balancing Western culture with Islam near the end. Although I am not sure if I agree with the actual order of the descriptions and anecdotes, I do appreciate the idea of spreading them out throughout the profile to make it more interesting.