FareCard Alibi

The headline on the front page of today's New York Times “Murder Suspect Has Witness: A FareCard” immediately caught my attention. Articles like this one always seem to catch my attention, hence why I am taking a homicide class this semester. The basic lead used also dragged my intention into the rest of the story. I thought it was a good technique to summarize the main point of what the article was about. However, we don’t learn the importance of the suspects FareCard until later on in the article which was also clever because it forced the reader to keep going.

The story lived up and was described perfectly in the headline. We slowly learned that the murder suspect had his lawyers ask New York City Transit to use his FareCard to trace his movements the night of the shooting. The results supported his account, showing that the card had been used on a bus, and later on a subway roughly five miles from the shooting, just as he had described. This description summarizes the main point of the story.

The story was organized in a way where I didn’t learn about the main focus of the story until halfway through. It began by giving background information which then led to the central idea. The story then goes on to less important information such as what a FareCard is used for and other criminal cases that have needed to use this card as evidence to support or convict someone of a crime.

The story linked its main points from the beginning to the middle. It began by talking about the murder itself and where the suspect claimed he was the night of the murder. It then goes on to talk about the extraordinary turn the case was taking due to the use of the suspects FareCard the same time as the murder. I thought this order was a great way to tell the story because it kept me interested throughout.

By the end of the article I had not learned anything new. This article was not meant to be educational. I was, however, fascinated by the use of electronics and how they are going to help keep an innocent man from receiving the death penalty.