Tuesday, September 27, 2011

More Ledes: What Crashed?

Ledes are hard in that you need to include all the info critical to understand the basic gist of the story, but at the same time you need to keep it brief and exclude any secondary details that may be helpful but not critical. That's a lot to take into consideration.

In that process, you may end up leaving out something so obvious, it's easy to forget it. Like in this lede:

Scott Forsythe died this morning 15 minutes before his wedding after he crashed into two trees and a fence going 100 mph to avoid hitting a dog.

Okay, so he hit that fence at 100 mph. He must be a fast runner.

I say that because you didn't say what he hit the fence while driving his car. All you say is that he hit the fence, nothing else included.

In another lede, you said a 22-year-old was killed. A 22-year-old what? Man? Car? Dog? Again, be precise.

Don't assume the reader knows a car was involved, and a man was killed. Don't make the reader guess that. Be clear AND concise. Not one or the other.

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