As this interesting comparision was written by my own teacher, Marcus O’Donnell, it is safe to say that i do not see it fit to critically analyse my superiors work. I will however, comment on the interesting nature of the comparison, given that it is such a prevalent topic in today’s society.

As a mutual observer, being a heterosexual, i guess i can sometimes overlook the imbedded discrimination in reporting of homosexuals and this reading brought to light that prejudice. This was interesting as it was a straightforward reading and didn’t include much emotion. It got the facts across and delivered a clear comparison between the two reportings of the Matthew Sheppard incident.

Once completing the reading, it is clear there are vast differences between the two investigative reportings, in terms of style, emphasis and angle of the reporting. JoAnn Wypijewski’s story in Vanity Fair, titled ‘A Boys Life’ tells the story in a form of anecdotes by the town people, the family and friends of the people involved. O’Donnell defines her work as:

“What marks Wypijewski’s work is that she is able to respond compassionately to all teh characters in her story while still maintaining a strong moral voice throughout. Unlike some of her informants, who want to both condemn and excuse McKinney and Hnderson, Wypijewski is clear that there are no excuses but there are multiple explanations.

O’Donnell finds this aspect different to the 20/20 investigative reporting by Elizabeth Vargas, which was set up as a ‘scoop’ and promised revelatory new evidence that would forcea reinterpretation of the accepted facts of the case. O’Donnell explains it as:

“The program set out to resconstruct  what happened the night Matthew Shepard was murdered, it sets up two seemingly irreconcilable possibilities. 1) Shepard died because he was gay and the victim of a hate crime; or 2) McKinney and Henderson set out to rob a defenceless college student but took it toofar because they were struing out on meth. At no point does Vargas seem to entertain that the two are not in fact exclusive options.”

O’Donnell outlines in his reading that the Harper’s story (JoAnn Wypijewski – ‘A Boy’s Life’) won a gay and lesbian human rights press award and the 20/20 report (Elizabeth Vargas) was condemned by gay activists as an attempt to ‘degay’ the Shepard murder. This was interesting, as the two stories had both touched on similar issues and had used some identical sources in sections.

I learnt a lot from the reading and it was interesting to see how two different reportings on the one incident can produce such diverse outcomes. I understood why Wypijewski’s feature was recieved better then Vargas and the aspects and techniques she used it reporting the story that made it a fair and more appropriate reponse to the complex and sensitive situation that occured.