Study delves into why Americans change religions

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-religion-churn28-2009apr28,0,689954.story

Okay, in contrast to my last piece, this story really bored me. The title and lead seemed interesting, but the article read more like a statistical report than journalism. I understand that the article is focusing on a study of facts, but that doesn't mean that the human aspect of the piece should be completely missing.

The story had 4 direct quotes in total. Including quotes like: "Adolescence is a critical time in religious development," (Woah...really?) The 4 quotes the piece did have were not original. Another such quote: "Many times, changing religions is a gradual process rather than a decision or event that takes place at a particular moment,"

The quotes didn't really add anything to the story. In my opinion, direct quotes should either be extra little ingredients or not used at all. All of the information was relayed in a concise, factual manner, which is important and beneficial to a story. However, the story never really "focused in," most stories that I've read start out with a more generalized focus, then "zoom in" to more specific people/cases. If there is no human connection to the piece, what is the point of reading it? I could sum this story up in two sentences:

- people switch religions a lot.
- people do it for different reasons.

This is not news. If the study is the news, give me more specifics from the study and quotes from participants in the study. Talk about how the study was done, maybe? I think there were many different ways to approach this study.

This piece was just a bunch of boring, generalized facts. boo.