I agree. It was unnecessarily sensationalist and ultimately invalidates its own title. Going from "common insect recognized as belonging to new order" to "discovery of a new life-form" is quite a leap. The author also seems to conflate knowledge (or at least awareness) with formal labeling. Plenty of people had known and even collected these insects for years, but hadn't gotten around to naming and categorizing them yet.
It's not that bad if you don't mind that he's storytelling rather than just reporting news and facts. Usually it drives me crazy when web writers do this, but in this case it wasn't too bad, although I still didn't bother to read the whole thing.
A good news article, especially on the web, should answer as many big questions as possible within the first couple of paragraphs. Typically readers don't appreciate being kept in the dark. If your heading is "man discovers new life-form" we should have a description of it within 30 seconds of reading. The name of the new order shouldn't be in the 8th paragraph.
Actually I thought it was exceptionally well-written for a blog post since it totally held my interest throughout. Don't confuse poor writing with good writing that just needs a little love from an editor.
I think it's not about poor spelling or grammar but how to structure an article. A well structured article can be easy and fun to digest even with syntax mistakes.
Agreed. I stopped reading halfway through, having not yet found a description of the beast beyond "It was a fossil that looked like a cross between two different kinds of animals," which describes everything from jackalopes to owlbears. The author doesn't even note that it was an insect until 3/4 of the way through the article.
