Article Critique 1

On ESPN I found the article, “Pour on the Pressure, but you’re not going to get to Eli” by Gene Wojciechowski. The article talks about Eli Manning and his influence on teams throughout his career and where he is now and how he got there. I like the style of this writer and I feel that he could reach a lot of people by his tone and what the article is about.
Lately we see a lot of news that finds the faults of people, especially sport icons. We see cheating, individual social choices, law-breaking and other bad images. Writers know that dirt on popular players often make for a good sports story. This story is different. This is an uplifting personal story about Eli Manning and although it isn’t all happy go lucky, it is the type of story that interests me, and helps me realize that these people are human and even good traits and qualities can be recognized.
This article makes some great references to the legendary Manning name and what we have expected in the past and what we do expect from Eli Manning. I think the author has made some great points into the personality of Eli. In the article it explains, “It’s hard to get a rise out of the guy. Barber came close (he questioned Manning’s leadership abilities), but otherwise Manning generally keeps his emotions to himself. When he was in high school, Manning came home from playing in a basketball game and his parents asked, ‘Well, how’d it go?’ ‘It went fine’, Manning said. ‘We won.’ Except that they won because Manning scored 30 points, including the game winner. Cooper had to tell them, Eli wouldn’t.”
By this we can tell that the author did a lot of personal research of Eli Manning and I think this creates depth to the story. This article also has great flow and great references. Obviously if you write for ESPN, you have some great sources and he has had a lot of experience and can relate to his readers and public. The quotes were reported clearly and understandable in the right places in this article.
This story is newsworthy because of the relevance of the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, which is always the biggest football game of the year for most people. The article is fair to any audience and is overall positively written. There are specific main points all throughout the body to keep attention on the overall topic and idea the writer is conveying.
This article also paints a pretty good picture of the personality of Eli. You don’t get to know a lot of in depth personal stories from spotlight players-at least good uplifting insights. He has come a long way from his high school, and college career and this article proves that with facts. This next excerpt from the article I am including because I think it is great writing. It is the lead into the article. “The text message was sent to Eli Manning before the NFC wild-card game at Tampa Bay, before the divisional playoff fame at Dallas, before the NFC Championship Game at Green Bay. Slow and steady wins the race, it read. No unforced errors.”
One thing I don’t like about this article is that I don’t know many of the sources. I am definitely not as much of a sports enthusiast as a lot of people I know so I am not familiar with the less popular group of successful sports participants. I am at fault for that, not so much the writer. I wonder though, as such a high profile writer, does he find his own sources and facts or does he have someone finding these things for him? I don’t know much about writing for a company specifically and the job details, but I would hope that if you get the facts, you get the credit.
Overall I clearly like this article. I like the tone, I like the idea and I like the overall style of the writing. It was easy to comprehend and read smoothly. It caught my attention with the lead and title and it kept my attention throughout the article making me read it all the way to the end.