RIP Matt Sloan aka Carpedm01...

If you want my honest opinion about the article (as a journalism
professor and someone who doesn't really share your passion for
festivals), I can do that. I haven't read the inforoo link you sent me
yet (I didn't want it to bias my response) but I'll check afterward to
see how far off I was.

This is what I would write if Mr. Blake was one of my students
(admittedly, I'd probably tone down my comments a bit):


Andrew,

While it is clear you put a lot of work and effort into your piece, I
definitely some issues about your article, most of which can be summed
up with three points:

1) This piece is about you, not Bonnaroo. You sound like someone who
hates loud kids but spends his days as a Chuck E. Cheese birthday
party supervisor. From the beginning your tone is adversarial, and so
the reader feels like s(he) should be on the defensive. And, because
it's about you, we (the readers) lose any kind of connection to the
piece, and you eliminate any possibility of storytelling (which is
what journalism is all about).

2) Your story is one-sided. Painfully one-sided. No one is expecting a
completely unbiased report of what happened (let's save that for the
Associated Press), but clearly thousands upon thousands of people love
going to Bonnaroo. Honestly, when I started your piece, I was
expecting a brilliant article about a journey you undertook at the
festival where you met people and learned that, despite your
misgivings, there was still something for everyone. Instead, you make
the festival sound like a combination of an opium den and scenes from
the Death Wish films. As a result, you lose your audience's trust.
Just as the world does not work in absolutes, neither does writing.
When you do, it comes off as sensationalistic and borderline cliche.

3) Serious concerns about the Matt portion. Obviously, when you
mentioned the drug dealers and Matt as your only characters (outside
of you and the musicians) in your piece, we all knew what was coming
(like a bad, heavy-handed horror movie). And I have no problem with
you including your thoughts on Matt's behavior--camping next to him
meant you were a source, and your observations matter (as journalists,
we cannot tip-toe around death out of respect--that's not our job).
However, there are major problems when you don't include anything else
about him. You didn't talk to anyone about him, as no other sources
appear (by name) in your piece. This could have legal
repercussions--libel of a private citizen can be a relatively easy
lawsuit. Even citing other people saying the same thing would have
built your case, but it's almost hearsay.

However, more importantly, you're not telling us anything about him AS
A PERSON. He's more of a pawn than a character, almost there are
convenience. We don't know anything about his background, and you seem
to single out drugs as the culprit (while undoubtedly a number of
other people were doing the same thing), rather than acknowledging the
heat as an issue. It reads as more of a morality tale, there to
confirm your suspicions of the festival.


Oh, and in terms of prose, your writing seems designed to call
attention to itself. At someplace like Bonnaroo (or a thousand other
events), the stories, appearance, and behavior of the people around
you should basically write the piece itself. There's no need to add a
million adjectives to punch up your experience. Honestly, it reeks of
someone who treated the reporters notebook as a diary (or, in this
case, a "Grinds My Gears" Journal) rather than as a tool for
documenting the scene around you. Slogging through your verbiage, at
times it feels like a freshman English student trying to finish a 2500
word count (and you've only got about 750 words of actual content).

D+