"To Herbie the elm: Goodbye, old friend" by Ray Routhier seemed to provide, for the most part, all of the components of a news story. The story was posted in the Portland Press Herald. Herbie was an elm tree in Yarmouth, Maine that was over 200 years old. The story described the cutting of the tree this past week. The seven parts of a news story, according to Mencher, are accuracy, proper attribution, completion, balance and fairness, objectivity, brevity and focus, and well written.
Routhier’s article contained as much accurate information that I could decipher. As far as I could tell, Routhier attended the event because there were direct quotes and observations. All sources of information were taken straight from the occasion on Tuesday of this week.
Routhier presents the article very objectively and fairly. He relates the story as if he was writing exactly what he saw and heard. He interviewed three to four different people including the 101-year-old caretaker of the tree. There were about 40 people who attended the ceremonious cutting. He made a rough count of people there. The story was clear and direct. The focus of the article was to embrace a historic tree that many people had created relationships with. However, he lack of brevity of the article was definitely an issue. Most of the article was based on direct quotes, which is respectable, but the overall effect of the story was lost in the length.
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