def METHOD_NAME(start, advertised_start, announcement):
    """
    Utility function to get datetime objects for dates used to
    compute the is_new flag and the sorting_score.
    """
    try:
        start = dateutil.parser.parse(advertised_start)
        if start.tzinfo is None:
            start = start.replace(tzinfo=utc)
    except (TypeError, ValueError, AttributeError):
        start = start  # lint-amnesty, pylint: disable=self-assigning-variable
    now = datetime.now(utc)
    return announcement, start, now