1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Taking the bus instead of an airplane? You're poor ...

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Claws for Concern, Jun 5, 2007.

Page 2 of 4
  1. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    [​IMG]
     
    slappy4428, Jun 5, 2007
    #13
  2. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    I took Amtrak back from Chicago one time, only a four-hour trip. It was the California Zephyr, on its way to San Francisco. I shudder to think what that trip to the West Coast would be like if you didn't have a sleeper compartment.

    On the article, there was so much more the writer could have done.
     
    JBHawkEye, Jun 5, 2007
    #14
  3. boots

    boots New Member

    The story is a sign of things to come from our soon to be internet society.
     
    boots, Jun 5, 2007
    #15
  4. Leo Mazzone

    Leo Mazzone Member

    I had to travel 700 miles a couple months ago and flew because I found a ticket for the same price as Amtrak. Bus fare was only a little cheaper, and it would have been a 21-hour trip.

    No thanks.
     
    Leo Mazzone, Jun 5, 2007
    #16
  5. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I thought that was a lousy story. This passage bothered me:

    "The passengers on one such trip in May included an elderly couple with the twitchy movements of drug users. They boarded in Mobile, Alabama, and the man promptly locked himself in the bathroom at the back of the bus, refusing to come out.

    When the bus halted in the small town of Greenville, Alabama, and the driver told the couple they had paid to disembark there, they appeared astonished."

    As the writer says, this is an elderly couple. Clearly they don't have all their marbles. Yet I don't think that should make them a source of ridicule, calling their twitches akin to drug users and pretty much accusing the guy of using because he locked himself in the bathroom the whole trip. Was it drugs? Maybe. But this writer shares no shred of proof.

    This thing read like a bad college newspaper story. Writer talked to a bunch of riders and got the requisite stats and quote from the Greyhound spokesman, but offered nothing of substance and ended the story abruptly.
     
    playthrough, Jun 5, 2007
    #17
  6. boots

    boots New Member

    Obviously, this was a rookie reporter doing an inadequate job. If this is a preview of what we're to expect from Yahoo and other sites, this business is doomed.
     
    boots, Jun 5, 2007
    #18
  7. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    You're right. A simple search of Reuters has the author working for the wire service for at least two years. So while I'm not defending the story, if "reporters" assume a subpar job is done by a "rookie" this business is doomed indeed.
     
    slappy4428, Jun 5, 2007
    #19
  8. boots

    boots New Member

    Slap, a story on Greyhound, especially from the way this reporter approached it was awful. There were many stories that they should've developed with making a run fromNew Orleans to Atlanta. I've made that run by bus and car.
    The effort they put forth could've been better if they had done it solely on statistics. The story didn't point out that bus ridership is up or that many stations have moved from decrepit locations or that the price is the cheapest form of mass transit available.
    There were too many holes to pick at.
     
    boots, Jun 5, 2007
    #20
  9. amraeder

    amraeder Well-Known Member

    My one Greyhound story. I was riding the bus from Madison to South Bend for my brother's graduation from ND. At Chicago this women gets on the bus with a bag of white stuff that she proceeds to snort through a straw. All the while, she's sobbing to herself. It struck me at the time as amazingly depressing.
     
    amraeder, Jun 5, 2007
    #21
  10. boots

    boots New Member

    There are also many positive stories, like the grandmother who is taking the trip to see her grandchildren graduate from high school or college, or the kid who is going on his first job interview, or the guy who has sunk his last dime into a one-way bus ticket to a place he's never been with the hopes of getting his life straightened out.
     
    boots, Jun 5, 2007
    #22
  11. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Perhaps. But you jumped to a conclusion that this was a rookie reporter, when a simple search showed it was not. That was my point, not the quality of the story.
     
    slappy4428, Jun 6, 2007
    #23
  12. KG

    KG Active Member

    What? Two years? That makes this story piss me off even more.
     
    KG, Jun 6, 2007
    #24
Page 2 of 4
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page