Media Critique

The New York Times is usually a very reliable newspaper/website to use, mainly because people can generally find good news stories about relative topics written by good journalists. So who gave Robert Seitsema an article? This article, titled "Dog Ziggity: New Jersey’s Own Hot Dogs," is more of a short story than a news article. The article starts by explaining how most people view hot dogs as part of New York culture while they are mainly part of New Jersey culture. This article falls in line with, "Ex-Chief of Charity Charged With Stealing Millions" and "Kenya’s President Says Mall Attackers Are ‘Defeated’" both of which actually have relevance to the public. Articles should try to make the important interesting, but Robert did the opposite and tried to make the interesting important, and did a crummy job of that too.

Robert violated several Principles and Yardsticks of Journalism. To be exact, Robert violated the principle of verification as well as the yardsticks of explanation and newsworthiness. First, he violated the principle of verification. Verification is using credible sources and being unbiased in any way. Robert used no sources, just himself, to describe the hot dog styles of just New Jersey, possibly offending some New Yorkers.

Robert also violated the yardstick of explanation. He never really explained anything except the form of the hot dog. How is this important? Why does this matter? What was the whole point? These same questions can be asked to show how Robert violated one of the most important yardsticks, newsworthiness. This article has nothing that the majority of New York Times readers need to know. People read the New York Times to learn about world news and major crimes/arrests, not to learn about hot dogs from one state. One- fiftieth of the United States of America. It won't have a long-lasting effect on people and doesn't apply something that a lot of people will need to know.

Not only is this a bad job of the journalist, but also a bad job on The New York Times' part. This could have easily never have happened if the New York Times would stop and think about the article before putting it on the front page. Now, they are stuck looking silly with an article about hot dogs right next to articles about terrorist attacks and million dollar robberies. The New York Times needs to watch who they give front page articles to.