Beat Journal: Deportation or Bad Economy?

In the following stories, amongst the themes found throughout most of them, the most prominent was that of immigrants being deported or leaving the U.S. While deportation needs no explanation (as they are illegal immigrants), the poor state of our economy is the main reason immigrants are looking for different places to go to support their families.

The stories I found on the CNN website were far more effective reports than the others because they used the best story structures for the events they were covering. One of them used a summary lead, followed by an easy to read/understand background paragraph which lead into a series of graphs detailing the happenings from most important to least important. The other CNN story was written with a Story lead, which explained the story's content without giving exact details or using statistics.

The reporter for Chicago's WGNtv wrote an excellent story, although the lead did not explain the story's content very well. Using a classic hard news summary lead, followed by three more graphs detailing the event, the story then went in a complete different direction. From talking about the airline that deports illegal immigrants, the reporter then began to write about other problems and events currently plaguing illigal immigrants. The story was well written/organized, yet there were many times while reading it that I felt like I wanted to stop reading because it did not flow smoothly.

Overall the coverage of immigration in the news is well done. But because our legal system moves so slowly in the conviction of illegal immigrants, and it takes non-profits so long to change policies and laws on immigration. Thus each report I have read so far has been a new event but the same story.


Resources:
"Immigration agency's airline flies tens of thousands of deportees out of U.S." Antonio Olivo Chicago's WGNtv reporter
"U.S. immigrant raids mark start of years of limbo" by Associated Press and published in the Greeley Tribune
"U.S. immigration history preserved on Angel Island" by Terence Chea of the Associated Press
"Bad economy forcing immigrants to reconsider U.S." by Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash of CNN
"Liberians facing mass deportation from U.S." by Eric Marrapodi and Chris Welch of CNN