Tentative agreement reached to end NHL Lockout

Tim Panaccio, writer for Comcast Sportsnet Philly, was one of the first reporters to write about the NHL lockout that ended early this morning. His article focused on the details of the negotiations, such as the new 2013-14 salary cap and the "heroic" actions of Scot Beckenbaugh, who worked to bring the two sides together for compromise. The article is focused towards sports fans with a good bit of background knowledge on the NHL lockout, (some things seemed to go right over my head) but was generally informative enough for the general public to understand.

The most interesting rhetorical device used, in my opinion, was the delivery of the article—which consisted mainly of facts about the negotiation and a couple interviews. The article came with a video shown at the top of the page, so that Internet viewers don't have to feel bothered with reading the article if they just want the facts. This is a trend I have been noticing more and more often amongst news sources, and it seems to reflect the growing laziness and television-dependency of Americans. Furthermore, the article itself is broken down so that the most important information is given in the beginning of the article (an arrangement found in most articles) in order to fill in viewers with only a couple minutes to read. The article also consists of several sentences or sentence pairs that stand alone, rather than fully thought-out paragraphs, so that the overall effect feels more like a checklist than an article. Unfortunately, this style has also become increasingly popular, so as to make the article feel more progressive and easier on the eyes.

Overall, the article could have been written a little more thoughtfully, with a bit more analysis of the information provided, but since Panaccio's intent was to get the essential information about the end of the lockout to the public as fast as possible, his article was in fact very effective.

 http://www.csnphilly.com/hockey-philadelphia-flyers/flyers-talk/Tentative-agreement-reached-to-end-NHL-L?blockID=820411&feedID=695