Tainted Chinese Eggs Article Analysis

Here's a link to this hard news article.

This interesting piece begins with a lengthy summary lede: "Hong Kong food inspectors have found eggs imported from northeast China to be contaminated with high levels of melamine, the toxic industrial additive at the heart of an adulteration scandal in Chinese milk products." It provides the who, what, and where. Oddly, it doesn't provide the when - and this information is not actually presented until the end of the article. Better structure would have helped this lede, as while the food inspectors are important, the real news is that the eggs contain toxic additives, and the lede should reflect this. Thus, the egg-melamine relation should be placed higher than the food inspector information.

The why and elaboration of the story are provided in the next two paragraphs, the first of which contains the article's nut graf. The rest of the article goes on to provide background of how melamine has been involved in Chinese food in the recent past and what China's government has been attempting to do about it. By citing the government, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Chinese health officials, and a Chinese newspaper, the piece provides authenticity. However, this could have been aided by a few direct quotes from the sources. Only a partial quote is provided in the article. 

The piece is structured in a background format, providing the backstory for what's been going on with these food scandals. However, the structure could use some help, as the very last paragraph contains information that should have been much higher, perhaps even in the lede. This information includes the when and exactly who discovered the melamine problem in the eggs. To end, the article uses a fizzle-out ending.