Jonathan Tilove writes  the “First Reading” blog for The Austin American-Statesman. His writing style is very matter-of-fact and detailed, but with a good mix of humor. He covers a very small area (Austin) and the city and state politics going on there. His sense of detail is from the perspective of a native Austinite looking out instead of an outsider looking in, making more emotion come out in his work. His use of light humor in his political stories is evident from the use of “Oh Snap!” in his headlines and phrases like “All right then” in his personal commentary, which is never scathing. 

Harvey Morris writes for the “International Herald Tribute” section of the New York Times. He writes about one hard-hitting issue, like the use of horse meat and other fillers in European meat or the removal of wrestling from the 2020 Olympics, and connects it on a global scale. Unlike Tilove’s blog there is not much humor to it. The spectrum of Morris’ stories are different as well, as Morris provides an issue encompassing many countries and shows the connections between them. Also unlike Tilove, all of the places Morris compares are on an equal level. Morris compares country to country looking across one level, or zeroing in on just one country, but Tilove goes from city to state to country in America only.

Mort Rosenblum also writes for “International Herald Tribune” and his articles do have a global focus, but they do feel quite a lot like op. ed pieces in terms of how much of his own opinion he injects into his work. It does not detract at all from the point however, and in general his writing style is more like Jonathan Tilove’s than Harvey Morris’. Rosenblum’s use of person, like how he met the famous figures in his stories (former Serbian president and Bosnian genocide co-conspirator Radovan Karadžić among them) adds a layer of personality that Harvey Morris does not have. Out of the three writers he is the most personal of all of them, and I enjoy his material for that purpose.

Nicolas Aldape

Staff writer