For this piece, I will be analysing “What It’s Like Being a One Hit Wonder” written by Sean Cole for Vice Magazine, a professional magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics.
Firstly what makes this a successful piece of journalism is Coles writing style. As Vice is a platform dedicated for more underground and informal news stories and not breaking news stories, Coles writing style is different to that of journalist who writes for a more formal outlet such as The Guardian. His writing style is instead informal and like a friend who is simply talking to you thereby making this story a worthy piece of journalism for his audience on vice who do not want to read a formal piece of breaking news.
As well as this, Coles story investigates what its like being a one hit wonder and therefore includes many news values that are appreciated by a platform like Vice such as diversity, arts, inclusion, celebrity and cultural awareness, all of which contrast the news values of traditional news platforms such as conflict, negativity and proximity. Cole identifies the values that Vice and its audience seek in a story and utilises them in this article with a heavy focus on arts and celebrity values.
Additionally, Cole uses several direct quotes throughout the article which are interwoven perfectly to his writing, “We were very naïve,” remembers Brown, who was just 17 at the time.” (Cole, 2023) Imbedded quotes such as this advance Coles piece of journalism as a gap between the subject of the article and the journalist is bridged, creating a more captivating story for the audience as they hear directly from a source or person involved.
Altogether, I believe that this piece of journalism demonstrates several strengths that must be utilised when writing journalistic as to guarantee a captivating and thereby successful story.