After reviewing Don Murray's discussion "Qualities of an Effective Lead" (Writing to Deadline 93), find a story with an effective lede on a newspaper website, post a link to it and analyze what makes it effective -- post the link and a paragraph of analysis as a comment on this message.
(Notice something else? I'm setting up this assignment so you'll have an opportunity to review what Murray says about effective ledes. Clever, huh?)
Be ready to talk in class about your story, too. We'll take a look at some of the stories you found and how we can use the techniques their writers used.
You should remember how to post a link, but here's a reminder:
I like to do this with two windows open, one to the page I'm posting the link to and the other to the comment (or create post) field in Blogspot. Here are the steps:
- In the address field in the header, highlight the address (or URL). Copy it.
- Go to the comment field. Type in <a href="
- Paste in the address with no space between the "less than" and the address.
- Type "> with no space between the address and the quote mark.
- Type in whatever words you want in the link, for example Link here
- Immediately after those words, type </a>
- Your link should look this this <a href="address">Link here</a>
14 comments:
Best Lede ever
This article by Sarah Antonatti in the Springfield Journal is a very good lede. She captures what the hole article is going to be about in one sentence. She also managed to fit in the who,what, where, when, why, and how much money this guys stole in the lede.
ledelink
I like this lede beacuse it is eye catching and has humor. It is something that people want to know about because it effects our lives everyday. It doesn't seem real and is the type of thing that people may second guess as they drive by a gas station because we are not used to it.
Just the way it is written makes me want to go ahead and ready the article.
Link here
This lede has all the elements that Murry describes in his book. Some points may be stronger than others but for the most part, they are all there. Focus, Context, Form, Information, Voice, and Surprise.
http://www.thestreet.com/s/panera-bread-rises-pf-changs-fizzles/newsanalysis/food/10382597.html?puc=googlefi
This site is mainly about stocks and whatnot, but the intro Lede paragraph grabbed my attention in reading something that would otherwise be dull. It did a play on words for food to capture the reader's attention, even though it was a few words, it worked well for something like the stock market.
I think this article in the New York Daily News has a good lede. Its something not everyone is talking about but something a lot of people know about and have an opinion about. Not only is the lede good, but i think the headline is good, it helps grab the readers attention as well.
my story
m388586http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/17355.asp
i thought this was a good lede for the article because cub fans are always saying, "oh we'll get 'em next year". this could finally be "next year" for them!
A good example of a lede can be found here. While it takes a couple of paragraphs to get all of the details, a lot of the emotion that protesters had is shown in the lede.
You can read the article i foundhere.
It's an article about a new Plan Parenthood, from the chicago tribune.
I think the lead...
"Protesters sang hymns, shed tears and displayed large photos of aborted fetuses Tuesday but did nothing to disrupt the first day of business at the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora."
is effective b/c it paints a picture in your mind, gives you information about what the article is going to be about, and makes you wonder more about the story. After I read the first sentence i wanted to read more of the story.You want to know how the protesters were handled and if there were any outbursts by the people there.
Keillor article
The lede (and the whole opening to the article for that matter) in this story is conversational and somewhat satirical and sarcastic. This made it stand out clearly from all the other articles whose ledes were hackneyed and boring. This is probably because the writer of this article is also a novelist and humorist, but i found this lede to be far more attention-grabbing and interesting.
Sandberg true-blue, always
Mike Downey for the tribune has a good lede about Sandberg's true-blue. Then it ledes into on how the cubs are doing this year.
Jeremy Dixon-
The article I found was in the LA Times. The title is "Moments in bad Hollywood parenting". Of course the story is about Britney Spears. It has a great lede that caught my attention. It starts off saying "While Mommy Chic rages in Hollywood, Spears is holding up the counter-tradition of...er...questionable hollywood parenting." It is a pretty funny lede and it sums up what the rest of the article is about.
Sputnik Stunned the World, and Its Rocket Scared the Pentagon
This is how the article begins:
"The standard Sputnik story goes like this: It was the launch of this metal ball that forced the United States to elevate the pursuit of science. But that's not quite true."
That's a good intro, I think, but it's not the lede. The lede comes later:
"On Thursday, the space industry celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch, an event that ignited the space race and resulted in the United States reaching the moon 12 years later."
I think both of these excerpts are good. The introduction (which is soft) has a voice and catches the reader's attention, and the lede itself (which actually happens in the sixth paragraph) brings the article to a focus and also reads well.
Link here
I believe that this particular story, about the custody settlement with Brittney Spears and Keven Federline, has a good lead because it within the first sentence you get the overall jist of what is going on within the article. As you read through the rest of the article you get more information but it is a good example of the inverted pyrimid.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/070516&sportCat=mlb
I like this lead because at the time that this article was published you knew exactly what the writer was going to talk about.
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