Chad, Described

I believe the descriptive technique is the most important technique in article writing. The tangible nature of the technique allows the reader to envision things as if he is actually there.

Without description, the reader is left blank, unable to fully understand the subject being discussed. When reading something, there is no way to visualize the setting or the subject, unless the reader is specifically told.

Description helps to put subjects in action, keeping the reader involved in the story. Without that involvement, the reader would move on to something else. And that's not what is wanted.

The feature article I've chosen, A Learned Man Searches for Relevance While Languishing in a Chadian Camp, uses plenty of description.

For an American who only knows modern civilization, it would be impossible to envision the impoverished conditions millions of people around the world face without description.

Here is a perfect example of the technique:

Fighting between the government, rebels and various militias plaguing
eastern Chad has taken place fairly far from this isolated maze of huts
and twig fences, two hours from any sizable town.

Being able to visualize the disorderliness and solitariness of the community instills in the reader the amount of hardship these people live with. It would be impossible to fully recognize the scale of the situation without the description.

Another example is:

A flock of kids waved frantically, like marooned residents of a remote
island, then went back to gathering firewood, hauling water or playing, building
facsimiles of their lost homes out of wet sand. It was food distribution day,
and women carried huge sacks of flour and beans from the backs of trucks. A few
Chadian soldiers were asleep at their post.

This entire paragraph reveals the desperation of the people, something impossible to comprehend without the use of adjectives and analogies.

In a TV generation, Americans have grown accustomed to seeing everything they are being told about. If suddenly forced to read without being able to "see" what is going on, that's a reader that won't be coming back for more anytime soon.

And as a writer, it's a useless proposition to expend effort putting our thoughts and insights on paper if nobody is going to read it.

The murder of Tupac Shakur 14 years ago remains unsolved to this day. This does not mean that journalists and investigators have not been trying to unravel the mystery that has shrouded the violent loss of one of rap music's pioneers.

One such reporter, Chuck Phillips of the Los Angeles Times, was presented with alledged FBI documents accusing two men of their involvement in Shakur's murder. It was later discovered by The Smoking Gun that the documents were forged by a convicted con man who has a history of fabricating stories that make him appear to be very influential in the rap music industry. Phillips and his supervisor at the LA Times, Marc Duvoisin, failed to appropriately verify the authenticity of the documents before publishing the story on the newspaper's website on March 17, 2008.

Phillips and Duvoisin have subsequently retracted their story and apologized for writing accusatory statements based on falsified information. The pair overlooked numerous inaccuracies, such as misspellings and uncommon acronyms, in the documents which should have triggered their skepticism. Upon realizing the magnitude of his error, Phillips said, "In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job." Additionally, Duvoisin said, "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."

Clearly this entire situation should never have materialized. In news organizations, documents, especially those of a serious nature, are almost always questioned by several levels of authority. This did not happen in this particular case, though it certainly should have considering it implicates individuals in a murder plot. There were several steps that were never taken such as the very obvious one of confirming the document's authenticity with the FBI.

The result is the loss of credibility for a reporter who won the esteemed Pulitzer Prize less than a decade ago. It certainly seems worthwhile to do the little extra work that ensures your place among the elite in your field. I would imagine both Phillips and Duvoisin now agree.