The style you are calling «journalism», others call "entertainment". The article does provide information, but the idea implied in the opening, of "bringing you somewhere" (as if fiction), clashes with the supposed intention of inform and comment (the «lightly pattering rain» is irrelevant to the story). If a journal is intended for recording idle remarks, its purpose may be artistic, if for annotations, informative, if for reasoning, analytical: the three can find an organic balance in a journal, finding a thread in the person of the writer. But the idle remarks are not required in the loci for information and analysis, where they are dissonant. Similarly, the "imagery" used as introduction clashes with the piece and looks like clumsy obedience to some weakly grounded convention.
That kind of imagery is not necessary in long feature pieces and journalism. And it mixes up registers with doubtful purpose and effect ("are we reasoning or are we feeling, imagining dreaming...?").
> Chiba (千葉市, Chiba-shi, Japanese: [tɕiꜜba]) is the capital city of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It sits about 40 kilometres (25 mi) East of the centre of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay.[1] The city became a government-designated city in 1992. In June 2019, its population was 979,768, with a population density of 3,605 people per km2. The city has an area of 271.77 square kilometres (104.93 sq mi).
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
"It's not like I'm using", Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency". It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese. [...]
The style you are calling «journalism», others call "entertainment". The article does provide information, but the idea implied in the opening, of "bringing you somewhere" (as if fiction), clashes with the supposed intention of inform and comment (the «lightly pattering rain» is irrelevant to the story). If a journal is intended for recording idle remarks, its purpose may be artistic, if for annotations, informative, if for reasoning, analytical: the three can find an organic balance in a journal, finding a thread in the person of the writer. But the idle remarks are not required in the loci for information and analysis, where they are dissonant. Similarly, the "imagery" used as introduction clashes with the piece and looks like clumsy obedience to some weakly grounded convention.
That kind of imagery is not necessary in long feature pieces and journalism. And it mixes up registers with doubtful purpose and effect ("are we reasoning or are we feeling, imagining dreaming...?").