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Article Summary

“AP analysis finds growing number of poor, high-hazard dams” is a news article written

by David, Michael, and Michelle for the AP News (Lieb et al., 2022). It talks about 2200 high-

hazard dams in poor states analyzed by the AP press. The article describes that for a dam to be

considered highly hazardous, it is in a poor state and poses a higher risk. The dams are averagely

old, and they could be overwhelmed by heavy storms. However, the government had set aside

some funds last year that would see to the repair of these dams. The risks can be reduced by

intentionally reducing water levels until all the repairs have been made. The analysis found that

New York has had an increase in the number of poor dams compared to the last four years, and

in South Carolina, it rose by a third from 2018.

Photographer’s background

Few of the photographs used in the news article were taken by photographer Gregory

Bull who has spent more than 20 years covering events across the USA and the world for AP

news. He is now working from San Diego, covering immigration, sports, and other news. He

captured an iconic photo of gymnast Gabby Douglas during the 2012 Olympic Games in sports.

The photo ended up on thousands of newspapers and websites worldwide on the front pages.

Gregory has also been up for many awards for the articles he has covered with AP. In April

2020, he and his team won Hal Boyle Award for the project "Outsourcing migrants," which

described the lives of immigrants who run away from poverty to find work internationally.
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Role of the Photographs in the story

The photographs by Gregory Bull in the news article played an essential role in telling

the story by showing what the high-hazard dams look like. It makes the reader visualize the

scene and lets them understand the condition of the dams the story is talking about. The picture

itself can even tell the story without reading the content. The first photo is of the rock and clay

dam of El Capitan Reservoir is put at the top and is enough to tell the reader what he expects to

find in the article. There is also a photo of Republican State Senator Brian James, who was

interviewed in the article. Gregory also took the photo, and it helps the reader know what their

leader looks like. These pictures supported the story by attracting the readers' attention to click

the story and find out what is being said about the picture. The pictures were also necessary for

adding aesthetics to the story. A page without a picture looks dull, and no one will be bothered to

read the story.

The story says that when a dam fails due to too much strain of water, the situation usually

becomes worse, and it could result in causing a lot of deaths downstream. Including other photos

showing how some high-hazard dams failed during a heavy storm could have been necessary to

help the reader understand the magnitude of the situation. Photos showing the repairs on a

particular high-hazard dam could have also helped show the transformation of an unsatisfactory

dam into a more reliable dam. The inclusion of these pictures could have been sufficient to tell

the entire news, providing all descriptions of each point discussed.

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Gregory Bull pictures