News Story #1
Road Rage Incident on Gloucester PI, Two Drivers Come to Blows
A traffic accident on Gloucester PI resulted in an alarming case of road rage in Brighton on Monday, creating a traffic jam that lasted nearly an hour.
According to several fellow drivers surrounding the vehicles in question, at approximately 1:25 PM, a young woman driving a blue car attempted to merge into the left lane, when a man in the left lane rolled down his window and began yelling at her and refused to let her in. After a short verbal confrontation, the woman then drove forward and braked suddenly in front of the man’s car forcing them to stop.
Eyewitnesses then describe the two individuals getting out of their vehicles, the woman assaulting the man with a blow to the face. Traffic was forced to stop in all lanes as the two chased each other across the entire highway, with many other drivers too scared to exit their cars. One driver, however, attempted to talk them down.
“She looked like a lunatic,” reported the intervener, who declined to be named. “It was crazy, because I saw in her car that there was a little boy, maybe seven, nine years old, in the car with her. Who does that, especially with a child in the car?”
Authorities arrived on the scene approximately five minutes later, separating the two and taking both participants into custody. The woman’s son was taken with them, as was an elderly female passenger from the man’s vehicle. No names have been released as yet.
News Story #2
Unconscious Man Abandoned for Hour at Shopping Centre
An unidentified man has been picked up by authorities after being found unconscious outside the Churchill Square Shopping Centre in Brighton on Tuesday.
According to several patrons on the scene, customers at the Shopping Centre began noticing a dishevelled-looking white man, approximately in his forties, lying unconscious outside the parking lot. Some witnesses even claim he was left out there for hours, despite other patrons noticing him.
“I noticed one bloke who walked past him, stopped, and stared at him for about a full minute,” said one store employee. “I was busy doing my job, so I didn’t have time to go out and help him yet, but I kept seeing plenty of people just walk right past him without even noticing.”
The employee called 999 after an hour of inactivity, with others going outside and unsuccessfully attempting to wake him up. Authorities arrived minutes later and took him to the hospital, where he was treated for alcohol poisoning. The police have declined to release the name and information of the man in question in the name of discretion, but have reported that he will make a full recovery and is expected to be released from the hospital shortly.
Employees and witnesses say that this situation has made them reflect on how they relate with each other in the community. According to one patron who was there when the man was picked up by the authorities, “It really makes you think about how you see other people. How many people just walked right past this guy who needed help? Maybe he could have gotten help sooner.”
Practice Critique
News Story #1 - Road Rage Incident on Gloucester PI, Two Drivers Come to Blows
For this first news story, I took from my personal experience of seeing an incident of road rage on Gloucester PI. It was an extremely dramatic scene, outrageous but at the same time wholly relatable and local, and thought it an excellent example of a regional news piece. Road rage stories are always intriguing and readable to an audience, as it is an extreme example of everyday anxieties that any normal, local reader can likely relate to. To that end, the story itself is extremely newsworthy and touches on several issues that are close to everyday readers’ hearts.
Like all good news stories, I attempted to open it up with a one-sentence summary of the news event in question, where it was, and how it happened. This allows the reader to gain the essence of the news story at a glance, which then informs the rest of the story and grabs their attention. Then, in the next paragraph, I went into detail about the actual beats of the incident, describing the time, the basic description of the parties involved, and the narrative of how the cars interacted and how the two people came to blows.
At the end of that story, I transitioned to the eyewitness account, from which I quoted an eyewitness who lend credibility to the emotional content of the incident – the actual element that the reader would be interested in. Using the quote to bring up the child in the car helped to further humanize that element of the story. I then wrapped it up by noting the intervention of the authorities, thus putting a cap on the end of the story itself.
News Story #2 - Unconscious Man Abandoned for Hour at Shopping Centre
For this second story, I again took from my personal experience of seeing an unconscious man outside Churchill Square Shopping Centre, people walking past in surprise and shock but not doing anything to help them. To that end, I thought it would make a good story linking a local news event to the greater, more relatable phenomenon of people being scared to intervene in other people’s business, even when they might need help.
As with the first news story, I started with a simple one-sentence breakdown of the news incident, then moved onto greater detail of the narrative of the event. I moved shortly onto the witness interviews, as it was important to hammer home early on the role of the other people on the scene in the story itself – their inactivity as the story itself rather than the man’s condition.
The second to last paragraph then focuses on the intervention of authorities, letting the reader know that the person in question is all right, and that the situation itself is resolved. This is important to note in the story, or else the reader might believe it is an ongoing scenario. Finally, I wrapped up the story with a paragraph on its greater point of alienation within the community. I picked a solid eyewitness quote to end the story on, reflecting on the man’s situation in a way that reflected the major issue the story was intended to convey. The ideal message of the news story is to tie in a local event with the larger exploration of how people relate to each other in Brighton.
