I chose this story because of its relevance to my life as a full-time college student who rarely gets the healthy amount of sleep at night. The writer referenced a recent survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that asked 75,000 people about their sleep habits. One-third of the people surveyed had slept less than 7 hours the previous night, and 38 percent of that group had unintentionally fallen asleep at least once during the last month. Of that group, 5 percent admitted to nodding off at the wheel. Scary.
There are several news values at work in this story. Impact and proximity are both present. The need for rest is universal to all people. If people are not getting enough sleep, not only are they less effective at their jobs, and less sociable, they are a danger to themselves and others. The statistics about people falling asleep at their cars is unsettling to readers, for this reason, the value of emotion is also evident in the story.
The structure of the article was somewhat confusing at first. The author did not begin his story with a lead that summarizes the story, but instead opened with a statement that his story was an exception to one of his rules. I would have preferred for him to simply introduce the article with a summary. Other than that, I found the article to be well-written. The author utilized the survey statistics well, and provided other useful statistics and comments as well.
A possible follow-up to the story may be when new statistics are released on this information. Perhaps the statistics about sleep deprivation that may be related to the recent time change because of Daylight Savings Time.
No comments:
Post a Comment