Do Brian McGrory and Eileen McNamara really work for the same paper?

Back when I was interviewing for my first full-time journalism job (at ye olde Middlesex News in Framingham), they sat me down at a desk, gave me a typed list of facts about an incident in random order and gave me 15 minutes to turn the facts into a story.

Let's pretend we have two candidates for metro columnist at the Boston Globe. Here are some of the facts: Days of torrential rains lead to worst flooding in 70 years on the North Shore. Hundreds are evacuated. State officials rush to the scene and offer immediate aid.

Now we set them loose. They have 15 minutes to write a column.

One turns in a series of one-liners about how wet the rain is making Boston and how it's terrible to see women all bundled up and how, gosh, the rain is just awful.

The other thinks for a minute, then writes a thoughtful essay asking why state officials are so quick to pledge millions in aid to people along the Merrimack yet are quiet when it comes to daily, bloody violence in Boston:

... Romney and Senator John F. Kerry went to the Merrimack Valley to promise relief for waterlogged basements. They did not come to Dorchester to commit themselves to reducing the number of Boston's grief-stricken mothers. ...

Which one would you hire?