[Readings: 01] Profiles

The Biggest Little Man in the World

http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/201004/manny-pacquiao-boxer

Perhaps it is the writer’s Andrew Corsello’s style, but what distinguished the article “The Biggest Little Man in the World” from the other profiles of Manny Pacquiao that I have read was the active participation of the writer in the story. We all, by default, know who Pacquiao is, where he came from, what he does, who hangs around him. However, “the Person” rarely discloses during interviews, and we feel the exasperation of Corsello in trying to discover more about the Filipinos’ favorite son. The writer then narrated the events surrounding the mystery that is Pacman as they unfold during Corsello’s stay in the country covering. The writer was able to paint the image of Pacquiao as the Eye of the storm: strange, mysterious. By the end of the article, the readers would share the same sentiment of seeing Pacman as a puzzle not easily deciphered, and perhaps will never be. Previous profiles of Pacquiao told the same things about him as an athlete, the poverty he experienced when he was younger, his other endeavors aside from boxing. But this article contextualized Pacquiao’s actions in a Third World country where “karaoke is serious fucking business,” the side of him rarely seen or perhaps rarely understood, the things the people around him do, the way the Filipinos as a whole revere him. I would have liked to do the same thing should I profile Pacquiao as well. But since the article focused more on getting the views and information from the people in Team Pacquiao, I would have tried getting the perspective of his wife and immediate family.

Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/

For one thing, the article is based on scientific findings and therefore very informative. But what makes the article worth reading is the subject itself—virtually everybody within the same socio-economic and scholastic classification has accessed and utilized the Internet. Therefore, the readers can more or less relate. However, considering the “grade four rule” in journalism, the article still used jargons and technical terms about the human brain processes and the Internet. Apart from the writing style, the article basically invested on the topic which every writer must always strive to get. I think the strongest point of the article in getting the message across is the imagery used. Picturing information as water, the brain’s long-term memory as a bath tub, and the immediately-used short-term memory as a thimble used to transfer the water to the bath tub was effective. The writer also worked to relate the scientific and complicated findings to everyday activities (clicking the “Check for New Mail” button for example) and the long-term consequences of dependence on the Internet. But of course, writer Carr also made it a point to present not only the gloomy side of the scientific findings on the computer but also the benefits it could do to our cognitive functioning. If I would also write the article, I think it would suffice to just simplify the terminologies and include more easily understandable imageries.

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