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Personally I didn't think the article was particularly clear, informative or well-written.

It was emotive and brought attention to a terrible situation. But on objective measures of quality journalism, I see better articles daily in tabloid newspapers.

If the article wasn't so emotionally effective (and we didn't agree with its point of view) it might be more obvious that it was full of half-truths, weasel words and confusing narration.

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You forget, emotional effectiveness IS effectiveness. Not the only kind, but in this world it's probably the more important kind. Certainly the easiest to achieve.

Oh I totally agree - the article was effective. But I think there is a distinction between objectively high-quality journalism and convincing writing.

Most writing intended to be convincing (see marketing copy, political rhetoric etc) steers well clear of the facts or twists them so as to be unreliable. That doesn't make it any less convincing.

It is easy to notice when you disagree with the writer's point, but I don't think having a noble purpose automatically makes a piece of writing a "masterpiece".

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