Bicyclists -- Ledes

Every good story starts with a good lede.

A lede that passes the peanut Barrel test. A lede that makes things clear for readers and intrugues them, pulling them into the greater story. A lede that sums up what is the latest and most important. A lede that looks at ultimate outcome and context.

This lede accomplished many of those basic and important goals:

Holt resident Marsha Taylor was in the hospital for four months after a bicycling accident that could have paralyzed her. She was released two days ago.

Still, that lede leaves something to be desired. Yes, the accident was the most serious consequence here. But four months ago as a long time ago. That has to be very old news.

Given the disparity in time, I think it would have been wise to emphasize the timelier event, which of course was still directly connected to the accident since it was the reason she was in the hospital in the first place. This lede did that:

A local bicyclist was released from Mueller Memorial Hospital two days ago after spending four months there while recovering from injuries after being hit by a car while biking in Holt.

That's a good lede. But I found a better lede, one that highlighted something that made this story a bit more interesting: the fact that wrecking her body hasn't scared her off from riding.

A bike-riding accident that would have kept most cyclists off their bikes for good is not stopping Holt resident Marsha Taylor from getting back on the horse.

I'm not sure I would have used a cliche like "on the horse," but it certainly hits a Peanut Barrel point. To-wit:

"Hey Omar, what story did you work on today?"

"I wrote about this woman who just got outta the hospital after getting all busted up riding her bike. And even though she got all messed up, she still wants to ride!"

That's one thing that makes this story a little bit different from any other accident story, right?

This lede disregarded the time element by putting the latest happening in a delayed lede role, and turned the accident into a mini-anecdote, like this:

Approximately two week after biking across the U.S. with no complications, 37-year-old Marsha Taylor arrived back in Holt only to become the victim of a severe biking accident.

She was released just two days ago after spending four months recovering in Mueller Memorial Hospital.

The opening of this lede obviously isn't pegged to the time element, like the first lede we looked at. It essentially turns the lede into a mini-anecdote that's a bit more personalized.

But it differs from the first lede in a very significant regard: it is trying to set context and tell a bigger story that goes straight to the Peanut Barrel rule: that somebody rode a bike across the country without a scratch, and then broke her body right by her home.

You know, it considers an angle that makes this story unique. It's ironic. It's contextual. It's a good lede, and great vision in terms of identifying what made a story truly different from the usual and expected.