The class that Mary Rogan came in to explain the art of investigative journalism was a wonderful experience. It provided a template for our investigative pieces and inspiration to improve them. The three works by Mary Rogan that I have chosen are Josef Penninger, A Little Bird Told Me, and Everyone Wants a Piece of John Tavares. Each of these articles stood out to me based on their ability to relate to me, and I assume, almost every reader.
Typically I have held no interest in science, or talking birds, or even the family life of young stars, but somehow these articles seemed to engage me. They read like a story and were written using relevant information. By that I mean that it contained pop culture references, not just recognizable to an adult male reading esquire, but also to teenagers and women and anybody else who was reading these articles. Mary’s ability to keep the interest of the reader is further demonstrated with her unfailing sense of humour. Her sharp, dry wit features prominently in all of her pieces. In particular I found that the sarcasm that Mary demonstrated in A Little Bird Told Me was especially amusing: “I didn’t go to Boston to hear Alex speak. There’s a parrot right here in Toronto who sits in a cage outside a pet shop and creams ‘Fuck you’ if you say hello to him. No, I came to Boston to see Alex think”. The bluntness and unexpected profanity are what, to me, makes this so funny. The weird bit about Mary’s writing is that this strange, witty, real life style of humour exists and thrives in all of all of her pieces, regardless of the levity.
In order to understand and stay interested in news articles, one must have a general understanding of who or what they are reading about. In Mary Rogan’s pieces she provides this background for you. She does this through literary allusions. This is displayed with the most prevalence in her piece Josef Penninger. In this article it would be impossible to anything at all that is being talked about without some scientific knowledge. She goes through Josef’s personal literary history by referencing work that Josef has done in various fields and the books and papers that he has written on this eclectic array of subjects within the wide spectrum of science. She also references the work of scientists that Josef has collaborated with in the past like Tak Mak and George Wick. These literary allusions act as the mortar between the bricks of the story that she tells in this article. They fill in the gaps and effectively glue the article together. The literary allusions also serve the purpose of proving that what she says is true.
Part of what makes Mary’s work so credible is that she goes to the source to get the best information available. It seems that she does not write about something unless she can go directly to the people that have been or are immediately involved with the subject that she is investigating. In every piece she goes to the trouble of documenting her journey to the source, which adds colour to the article. But the true colour of Mary’s articles comes from her glowing personality and ever present personal perspective. Regardless of the topic, Mary’s personality shines through the piece as if it were written to be translucent. I found that her pieces are not written to be objectionable or opinionated, but they nonetheless contain subliminal undertones of perspective underneath the meat of the article.
The three pieces that I have chosen are just three in a host of well written and unique articles that are not only enjoyable, but thought provoking. In her writing she manages to effectively display five prominent traits in particular, these are: pop culture references, literary allusion, use of humour, source, and her own personal perspective and personality. Through these she crafts wonderful and easy to read articles that I, personally hope to come across in the future.
