Fundamentals of Journalism Blog

Since July 13, 10-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey and her eight-year-old cousin Elizabeth Collins have been missing from Evansdale, Iowa.  The girls were last seen by their grandmother riding their bikes.  Four hours later the girls’ bikes were found on a trail by a firefighter.

Today an announcement was made by law enforcement that hunters came across two bodies in a field.  Authorities will not confirm if these bodies are the girls who have been missing for months.  They actually don’t even know for sure yet if they are two females.  There is suspicion this could led them to the end of their search though.  The two bodies have been sent to the state examiner’s office for positive identification.

Since the disappearance of the cousins hundreds of volunteers have spent numerous hours searching for them.  The lake where their bikes were found was drained and within in the last few weeks a reward of $100,000 was going to be given if the girls were released.

This whole story of finding two bodies may not be related at all.  Everyone will know within a short while.

I believe this story is very newsworthy for people in Iowa and certainly the people around the area where the girls were taken from.  I found this story within three minutes of it being posted so it’s still a developing story.  This has been an ongoing thing and has drawn many people in since the beginning.  Readers and listeners want to find out what has happened with these girls so that’s a main reason this is newsworthy.

Relating this to class, this also could be a feature story.  So many things could be highlighted to tell a different story.  The list on the board in class and the shooting of the football player relate kind of to this story as well.

Even though it’s an unfortunate situation these families are in and the scenario, stories like this draw readers and listeners in and make them come back.  They want to find out what ever happened.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20121205/NEWS/121205018/0/archive/?odyssey=nav%7Chead