Bail set for Jason Van Dyke, who could face felony charge
dentonrc.com/news/bail-set-for-van-dyke-who-c...
dentonrc.comPosted Jan 14, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC
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dentonrc.comNot that Jason Van Dyke, for any fellow Chicagoans.
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No, just the one who's been threatening people like Ken White for a while.
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I'm as sad as the next guy about the decline of small-market journalism, but this kind of writing sure isn't saving the business. They basically have the inverted pyramid, well, inverted. They start with a bunch of minutiae about his bail, then go chronologically through the process up to now, and then say what this is all about. And then precious little detail about who Van Dyke is, despite the rich history to be mined there, and next to no context about the Proud Boys.
Sorry. Not really law-related. Just a rant.
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Yeah it’s one of those stories that really relies on the reader being as obsessed with the case as the writer, to the point where they would know every book and cranny of the case just from seeing the name of the lawyer. It’s like jumping into a long running soap opera.
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Yes and no. It's definitely true that smaller-market publications often assume a greater familiarity with the subject on the part of the reader, and to an extent that makes sense, at least with bigger stories. If the high school principal is under arrest for sex crimes, the whole town will know, and you can write an article that jumps straight into the fray and has a graf or two at the end giving some brief background for anyone new in town.
But the problem here, as much as the lack of context, is the order everything is presented in. It breaks every rule about how to structure a news article. After the lede, you want to give basic context, and then go into greater detail about what the new developments are, before discussing background. To that end, the second sentence should have been something like, "Van Dyke was arrested on Tuesday after having missed a bail hearing arising from a September misdemeanor charge for filing a false police report." Then the whole courtroom scene should have played out before giving further detail about this case's history, which (along with some better editorial supervision) would have allowed the writer to paint a more cohesive background picture.
Again, sorry to ramble. Both my parents are/were journalists. This shit bothers me way more than it should.
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Ah, gotcha. Yeah I agree that it's not a good way to write an article; I'm sort of familiar with the case from other posts on r/law but if I hadn't been I wouldn't have been able to follow it at all until the end.
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Just when you think the fun is over. . .
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This is where the fun begins.
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He looks oddly like Peter Dinklage. Esp eyes/forehead.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't have been proper to request the hearing be moved or if not either appear yourself or if allowed have a counsel appear on your behalf. He's a lawyer so skipping his own bail hearing seems very foolish.
Very foolish is basically a polite way of describing this guy.
He's a lawyer who doesn't seem to understand that the law applies to him.