Homework assignment #3

The lead to the New York Times piece titled “Stolen Art by Warhol is Sought in California” is very successful in reeling in the reader. While it is not guaranteed to hook everyone at first glance (because frankly, nothing in this world is 100% guaranteed), the lead has just the right amount of information in it to make a person want to know more. It answers the general questions, but isn’t oozing with so much information that it gives complete satisfaction and no need to read on. What is especially terrific about the lead is that it reveals the story as a mini-mystery waiting to be solved. Carl Vogel and Solomon Moore write that “[t]he theft of 10 silkscreen paintings by Andy Warhol has the Los Angeles Police Department searching for clues, but it has people in the art world scratching their heads, too.” The story is not conclusive, but this is not to the fault of the authors of the article, as no evidence has been found which points in any specific direction of a perpetrator. I find it fantastic that the story looked at two different sides of the story. It gave snippets of police information, but it also gave snippets of information from the art world, which apparently uniformly agrees that Warhol paintings are not something worth stealing in this day and age, as they are easily traceable and steadily losing their value. The article is in the active voice, a trick which could bring life to even the most boring of subjects. On the whole, the article was well written, giving the straight facts in the beginning of the story and giving the less crucial information towards the end. There were quotes from a few different sources, both from the Los Angeles Police Department and from various people in the art world, giving this story credibility on top of everything else.