i don't really see too much to cut in my eyes. Any time you have a question when reading the article it seemingly gets answered shortly after, continually telling a story and giving information.
My only recommendations for the story would be not switching up the first and last name on quote attribution as that could confuse readers like it did me at first
I would refer to this story as a newsfeature, because it poses a news aspect with gun violence while leaning towards features because of Taylor's story.
The language/tone of the story is dark, but with a light at the end of the tunnel. The more you read you understand the hope for change and how basketball can really affect gun violence through Taylor's story.
Paul Taylor, the main person being talked about in the story, is the lone source.
They do a variety of attribution, not using 'person said' all the time. The only time it is confusing to me is when he switches between the first name and last name. i say this because of the fact this man had changed his name, thus making the timeline of the story confusing.
I don't like the partial quotes here and there, as they aren't poignant enough to do so. Otherwise, they are handled fairly well.
Only this time, the victim’s family sat behind him. Every day during the proceedings, he heard their sobs, felt their pain. It’s hard, looking back at the complex geography of a life, to pinpoint truly decisive moments, to locate those pivotal nanoseconds before which you really were somebody else. But, for Paul, this was it: Sentenced to life plus 26 years, he couldn’t get the sound of their pain out of his own head.
I'd say the writes use of verbs throughout the story is fairly solid. It adds another level of descriptiveness to the article and makes the story flow well, especially in this graf.
The sentence structure is pretty solid as everything flows fairly well. There's about one to two sentences per graf
It was 1994, and Taylor Paul—then known as Paul Taylor; we’ll get to the name-switch later—was the defendant, a ruthless drug lord in Newport News, Virginia, whose street nickname was “The General.” He was much-feared, and had been one of the protectors of a young basketball phenom known as “Bubbachuck” on the Newport “Bad” News streets: Allen Iverson.
This is the singular nut graf, which lets the reader know who the story will somewhat revolve around and why it's being discussed.
Normally, the family of murder victims sit behind the prosecution during the trial of their loved one’s killer. But that wasn’t the case for the mother and sister of Julius Jegede.
Here is the lede for the article. It is a little short and it kind of leads the story a little shorthanded in getting to the main point, especially after the nut graf. It is a feature lead, that isn't extremely descriptive.
Teevens’s radical plan to turn around an Ivy League football program a decade ago is now the unlikely blueprint for every team in the NFL. Dartmouth eliminated full-contact practices. Injuries plummeted. Success skyrocketed. Rethinking how football teams have practiced for over a century made Dartmouth healthier—and better. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has forced Bill Belichick, Andy Reid and every NFL coach to follow the lead of Buddy Teevens. This season’s player safety protocols ban padded practices with full contact in NFL camps until Aug. 17, three weeks after players first report.
You could argue that the first graf in this annotation is the nut graf, but I think it is both of these combined due to the fact the second graf ties the NFL even more while the first graf keeps Darmouth still as the main interest in the story.
Buddy Teevens came up with a crazy idea because he needed one. Dartmouth’s football team lost every one of its games in 2008. It won only two in 2009. Teevens knew just two things for certain: his team’s injury rate was really high and its success rate was really low.
This is a features lead for sure. This sets up the nut graf pretty nicely by not giving away the main idea of the story, but draws the reader in. It's fairly descriptive and three sentences long, but it keeps they mystery of the story by not being super descriptive.