Super Model With Blood Diamond

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/09/2978055.htm?section=entertainment

Here is the latest news about supermodel Naomi Campbell’s “blood diamond” case on ABC news website. Actress Mia Farrow and Campbell’s former agent Carole White were called to testify at the trail.

This case is quite hot these days because of its combination of Campbell and blood diamond. The title of the news uses exactly these two elements to attract readers: “Campbell bragged about huge diamond”. Clicking the mouse brought me to the news.

The first paragraph gives an introduction of the story, which is clear and brief. It is bolded, which gives readers visual sense of importance, persuading readers to cover it first. Then the story develops, with a good structure. Since Mia Farrow’s testimony is much more important and more directly related to the case than White’s, the author divides the story into two parts – Farrow part and White part.

In the first part, the author quotes exactly what Mia Farrow said in the trail, just does few edition on the sentence sequence, says, “She said in the night she had been awakened by men knocking at her door ... They had been sent to her by Charles Taylor and they had given her a huge diamond," Farrow said, adding that Campbell had been “quite excited" about it, and the original video shows that Farrow recalled the scene as “Campbell said quite excited that in the night…” This small change highlights Campbell’s reaction to the diamond and makes her testimony suspect, further strengthening what the title implies. After that, author presents the background of the story, giving some information about Liberian ex-president’s war crime trail, which is helpful for readers to proceed to the next part of the story.

The “White part” is subtitled with “Mildly flirting”. It is a piece of testimony quoted from White. All she talked about is the affair between Campbell and Taylor at the dinner and later the diamond giving recollection. Since the story is quite long as online news, readers may get bored when they finish the first part. The subtitle re-catches the readers’ attention and presents White’s testimony to raise questions about Campbell’s innocent. Readers are likely to trace the story after reading this news, at least, as a reader, I will.

(Next entry is the video: Mia Farrow testifies at The Hague)