I've enjoyed the growth of expert blogs like this one in the last few years!
I've generally felt that traditional news falls into several traps of writing style that turn me off completely:
- an insufferable mixture of informational coverage with character profiles (e.g. I come to read about the Sahel gold rush but I am confronted with paragraphs of vibe-setting introduction as the author interviews a person of interest).
- coverage that assumes the same level of contextual knowledge for complex and distant conflicts as for recent national news.
- dull "long reads" that I just don't feel like spending a hour on.
On the other hand this piece is just informative, concise, and engaging :)
I've generally felt that traditional news falls into several traps of writing style that turn me off completely:
- an insufferable mixture of informational coverage with character profiles (e.g. I come to read about the Sahel gold rush but I am confronted with paragraphs of vibe-setting introduction as the author interviews a person of interest).
- coverage that assumes the same level of contextual knowledge for complex and distant conflicts as for recent national news.
- dull "long reads" that I just don't feel like spending a hour on.
On the other hand this piece is just informative, concise, and engaging :)