Immokalee Star

When viewers open the Naples Daily News website today, one of the first articles posted was about current Arizona Cardinals running back Edgerrin James, who is heading to the Super Bowl today. He is originally from Immokalee but has risen to stardom as a phenomenal football player. He overcame drugs, his family was poor, and "safe" was not a term used to describe his community in his Immokalee town. James rose from the bottom and is a successful millionaire today, but after reading this story I began to think about local reporting. If James did not come from Immokalee and did not undergo a harsh childhood, would his story be news-worthy at all? The article tended to only focus on his past, and did not attend to the fact that he was going to play in football's national championship in a few hours. After considering these observations, I came to the conclusion that readers must rather read a struggle-to-success story than a pure success story of a local star. The writer focused more on his troubles than his current position, and I found this reporting strategy an unfair one.