Questioning the Media

The New York Times article, "'No Country for Old Men' Wins Oscar Tug of War," gave much information on last night's wins and losses at the Academy Awards. As the title suggests, the film, "No Country for Old Men" won the Best Picture Award. There were several wins that came as surprises, such as Marion Cotillard's win for Best Actress. The movie, "Juno" also claimed an unexpected win for Best Original Screenplay.

As I read the article I thought of several questions about which information the authors chose to include. Best Picture is a topic that is generally interesting to most readers, however few readers are curious about which film won the Best Original Screenplay. This article not only stated that Juno had won the Screenplay category, but also included personal information on the screenplay's author, Diablo Cody. Diablo, the article states, was once a stripper before getting into film. This information has no bearing on the film or the Oscars, and I wondered at first why the authors mentioned it at all. I then realized they included the detail because they wanted to grab readers' attention with a little added scandal.

nytimes.com