Paige Williams uses her research to structure her article ‘Poverty by Numbers’. Her use of numbers is to try and shock the audience and rather than building a narrative around the statistics she has found she uses each statistic or group of statistics to prove a point.
And just as all the numbers suggest, Paige Williams has lots of sources for her article including interviews with people living in poverty in Atlanta, an Associate Professor in Georgia State University’s School of Social Work, Cindia Cameron, organising director of 9to5 (a national association for working women) and co-chair of the Georgia Living Wage Coalition , Census figures and more.
As this story is built around the sheer volume of information from her investigatvie research it is important that Paige Williams uses research from reputable sources.
The layout is a little confusing to read and my eyes tend to dart across the screen, attempting to read both columns at once. The facts are shocking but it is the second part of the article, the real life story that I find more interesting to read. By using real people – Vicky and Will and telling their story all the facts and figures begin to have meaning. I suppose in this way the article makes sense, as well as hitting you over the head with facts and figures Paige Williams then follows up with an emotive story to help qualify what these numbers mean.
“The Minister, the money and Ms Liu” would have required very careful and considered researching before the article was ready to print. In order to make sure all the facts were correct and to avoid any potential legal actions, the journalist must have undertaken a significant amount of research.
Sources include
- A collection of Liu’s personal letters ‘sourced by the age’ including letters from Liu to the bank (in China and Sydney)
- Defence Department Officials investigation?, Fitzgibbons confession
- Insider into the story to pass on information
- contact was made with Joel Fitzgibbons in regard to the accusations made based on evidence from Liu’s letters & documents
- Eric Fitzgibbon
I think for this article to be written the journalist must have had very strong connections/inside sources which gave them tips about where to start. What I would like to know is how did the Age obtain the letters and documents from Liu?
Reading this article, you can see how it may have started as a whole bunch of disconnected facts and perhaps a tip off by a source but slowly as the bits of information come together, the story emerges. Even though this article does not answer all the questions regarding the matter, it manages to present all the facts in a reasonable way whilst telling the story.
