Case Study1

Eagle Snatches Dog While Owner Watches 

Valdez, Alaska -- A bald eagle satisfied its hunger at a Valdez gas station when it snatched up a small dog and flew away, leaving the dog's owner screaming in horror. 

The chihuahua-like dog had been let out of a motor home to run around in the station's parking lot while the owners, an unidentified couple from Georgia, cleaned the vehicle's windshield.

Witnesses said the pet was about 5 feet away from the RV when the eagle swooped down from a perch in a nearby tree. Before the owners could react, the eagle circled up and away, heading off toward the city's harbor clinching the pooch tightly. 

"It was the damnedest thing I ever saw," said Dennis Fleming, a gas station attendant. "The dog gave one yelp and that was it." 

The woman owner clutched her hands to her face and cried, "Oh, my God," while Fleming tried to console her. 

Her husband, however, didn't appear to take the dog's departure too seriously. Fleming said as the man walked around the side of the motor home, out of sight of his wife, he began to grin and chopped his hands in the air and exclaimed, "Yeah! Yeah!”

Case Study1

Questions I would ask the reporter:

1. How do you know the eagle was satisfying its hunger? Did it actually eat the dog, or did the eagle just carry the dog away?

2. How do you know the dog's owner was screaming in horror? Did you ask her why she was screaming?

3. What is the actual breed of the dog? "Chihuahua-like" is an insufficient description.

4. Why aren't the dog's owners identified and interviewed? If you knew they were from Georgia, you should know not only their names but also their entire point-of-view of what occurred.

5. How many witnesses were there? What were they doing? What did they see?

6. Did anyone else see Fleming trying to console the woman?

7. Why didn't you interview the owners or any other witnesses?

8. What was the dog's name?

9. Why was this couple in Alaska?

10. Was there a search for the dog conducted?

11. Was Fleming your only source of information? If so, he was not properly attributed and you need more sources.

12. How else has the local bald eagle population affected this area?

13. What should be done for future prevention?

What I would say to the editor:

It was a mistake to run that story because it lacked so much important information and details. 

There are several issues in this story that are vital to the success of journalism. The first that I recognized immediately was the severe lack of reliable sources. The nut graph, arguably the most important paragraph in any news story, has no attribution for the information. The story only has one source: a gas station attendant who claimed to be an eye-witness. Though the story mentions other eye-witnesses, none are interviewed. The reporter did not even interview the owners of the dog, one of whom seemed to have an interesting reaction to the event. News stories need different points of view for their ultimate pursuit of the truth. This story severely lacks different views as well as any expert knowledge on eagle habitats in the area.

Secondly, though the description of what happened is somewhat clear, details are lacking. One of the golden rules of journalism is to get the animal's name. Doing this almost mandates the reader to personally relate to the story because so many people have pets of their own. This story is almost unable to be related to because no one personally involved is given the chance to tell their story. The people who were most affected by this event cannot share the details of their emotions because they were not even interviewed.

Finally, the "So what?" factor behind this story is unclear. The event is certainly newsworthy because it is so out of the ordinary; however, no explanation as to the reactions of the male owner as well as local bureaucrats is given. The local residents would like to know how this event affects not only them but also the bald eagles. The local animal officials and leaders potentially searching for the unidentified dog should have been interviewed. This seemingly small event could have a big effect on the surrounding Alaskan populations, and the possibility of that happening is not even considered in this story. The reporter had so much potential to be creative and in-depth with this story and apparently did not even try to get to the truth. The constant pursuit of the truth: that is the goal of journalism.

The writing is far too light-hearted and general to be taken seriously.