1st Weekly CORE Writing
An article which can lead to confusing and misguiding the readers is Larry Kim’s “The Unexpected Trait 9 Tech Billionaires Share” on Medium. The article’s introduction is an argument for not going to college. The introduction presents itself with a slightly grim reality of the expenses of college and that success is only attained through graduation, only to transition to a more positive statement that these 9 billionaires didn’t graduate to college; therefore, you may not necessarily have to go to college to be successful and you too can become a billionaire if you don’t graduate from college. The article continues listing those 9 billionaires with very vague descriptions of their education and backgrounds, not mentioning how talented and ingenious these individuals were before attending college. This argument is very weak, on the basis that the issue is not so black and white and has so many other variables to put into consideration. In addition, the writing style is also very reminiscent of a click bait article (which it is). It uses the first and second views and a more colloquial writing style. It is not to say that those are inefficient writing styles methods of writing, it is just that those traits paired with an overall poorly executed argument are simply not helpful for the readers and can lead them down the wrong path. There is some truth to the article, it is because there are so many details left out that it easily misconstrues reality and can cause younger audiences to make poor life decisions. Further investigation would lead one to believe that this article is in fact click bait and is solely for the notoriety and for the ad revenue, as the author, Larry Kim, is the CEO of the biggest company on Facebook Messenger, seen from the brazen advertisement at the end of the article. Their target audience are confused and worried young people, and exploiting their insecurities can cause further misguidance and greater problems.
The more beneficial article, “Police arrest anti-violence protesters trying to march on Kennedy Expressway near O’Hare” from the Chicago Tribune. Although the Chicago Tribune does employ the same click bait tactic that Kim used in his title, the rest of the article is very detailed, objective, and multi-sided. Now on a completely new topic, the article covers the incident of the protest down near O’Hare airport and how twelve individuals were arrested. They have quotes from both officers and participants of the rally and how each party felt about the situation. Not only that, but further background information was provided, such as the original planning for a safer protest, previous rallies in the Chicago area, and the reasons for the actions that each party took to culminate into the arrest. In addition, the writing is much more professional. And unlike Kim’s article, there is no biases, it is purely for the sake of informing readers of the world around them, being a beneficial example of good media.