international news: “50 Years After Revolt, Clampdown on Tibetans” (NYT)
“China Outlines Ambitious Plan for Stimulus” (NYT)
national news: “California Court Weighing Gay Marriage Ban” (NYT)
“Obama Vows to End Stalemate on Health Care Policy”
washington news: “No Legal Shield in Drug Labeling, Justices Rule” (NYT)
local news: “High-Speed Train From Chicago: Next Stop St. Paul…Minneapolis?” (Star Trib)
http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul
article of the week: “Colorado’s Back-Country Ski Huts” by Ethan Todras-Whitehill (NYT)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/travel/escapes/06hut.html?8dpc
I chose this article because of our focus on descriptive news writing this past week.Todras-Whitehill writes in a way that allows the reader to experience the world he is trying to portray. The subliminal goal of the story may be to advertise for a “getaway,” but the story in itself is the “getaway”–the portal to an untouched world. Here’s an exerpt:
“I found myself on the floor of a spruce-pine canyon, looking upward at walls of boughs so evenly dusted with snow that they seemed as if they’d been shaped by millions of years of erosion.”
Todras-Whitehill does not simply say “There was snow on the trees, and they were in a canyon.” Instead, he uses descriptive words one would expect to find in other places to give the reader a fuller sense of the scene. For example, he could have described the bottom of the canyon as “ground,” but chose the word “floor”–a word more closely associated with a bedchamber than a forest. By using the word “floor,” Todras-Whitehill brings to mind a carpet of pine needles or a spongey rug of moss. Okay, so “floor” is really used quite often in talking about nature, but you get my point. Another unlikely descriptor is that of the frosted trees looking like a canyon because of the drift of the snow on their needles. When I think “canyon,” I think drama–something that once held a raging river. Hence I see a kind of majestic raw-ness in these trees, as if they had experienced the destructible force of a raging river. Todras-Whitehill uses his words to have the reader experience what he saw.
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