Bicyclists -- What's The Point?

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.

A lede centered on the accident simply as something that happened would leave 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 McDonald's manager was released from Omar Memorial Hospital Monday after being hit by a car and sent flying off her bike.

This lede is technically sound, other than missing a date fix for when she was hit by a car, which would simply require ending the sentence with four months ago. But I found a better lede, one that highlighted something that made this story a bit more interesting and may arguably be the main point of why this story is newsworthy, two days after the hospital release and four months after the crash: the fact that wrecking her body hasn't scared her off from riding.

For a 37-year-old bicyclist, a bicycle accident on Feb. 8 has not changed her attitude about riding a bike at all. In fact, she still wants to ride.

After Marsha Taylor suffered a concussion, broken neck, six broken ribs, a broken arm and broken pelvis from being it from behind by a car, sending her flying off her bike, she said if she could she'd still be out there riding now.

"It's hard to ride a bike when you have crutches," she said.

First, see how this was soooo Peanut Barrel:

"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?

Second, look at how nice of a lede/nut graf/telling quote combo this is. The nut graf nicely supports and amplifies the lede, and the quote puts a human voice and context on the previous grafs while also providing evidence for the reader.

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

Marsha Taylor was out for a routine bike ride about four months ago when her world was turned upside down.

Taylor -- a 37-year-old recreational cyclist who estimates she's logged about 3,500 riding miles this year -- said she was struck from behind by a car while on a roughly hour-long ride in early February.

The opening of this lede obviously isn't pegged to the time element, like the first lede we looked at. It instead is trying to set context and tell a bigger story that goes straight to the Peanut Barrel rule: that somebody was just doing their daily non-newsworthy thing when the switch on their normal life was flipped to the "off" position.

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.