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 intrigues 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.

In this exercise, there were plenty of good ledes. Many of you did very well in this exercise. This was one of those ledes:

After spending four months in a hospital and rehab, a local 37-year-old woman was released two days ago after being hit by a car while riding on her bicycle.

That's a good lede. It certainly gets the latest news in there. But I found what I thought were some better ledes, 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.

Marsha Taylor's body may be broken but her love of cycling, with the proper precautions, persists despite suffering major injuries from a bike accident she was involved in four months ago.

... and ...

Despite sustaining serious injuries from a cycling accident, Marsha L. Taylor is determined to get back on her bike and ride once again.

... and ...

After a biking accident caused a woman to suffer multiple severe injuries and spend four months in the hospital, she is able to maintain a positive attitude about the sport.

These all certainly hit 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?

Now, don't get me wrong. It doesn't make the first lede wrong, or bad, or even so-so. It's just out of a bunch of good ledes, I would say the latter ones are better.

These ledes disregarded the time element by using anecdotes and context to tell a bigger story from a feature-ish angles of unexpected challenges.

When Marsha L. Taylor went out for a short bike ride four months ago, she never envisioned she would end up spending the next four months recovering from it.

... and ...

Once you learn how to ride a bike, it becomes second nature. But little do people know serious accidents can still happen, no matter how much experience someone has.

The opening of many of these ledes obviously aren't pegged to the time element, like the first lede we looked at. And that's okay, since the time pegs made it less of a breaking story. The woman was released two days ago; she was hurt four months ago. Those angles, one could argue, were old news.

But what was fresh regardless of time peg -- something we call an evergreen story in the news biz -- is the woman's personal and unique struggle in dealing with this and making sense of this. You didn't have to turn this into more of a news feature, but doesn't that angle work well? And isn't it a bit more interesting than simply saying someone left the hospital?

It's the sort of thing I'd tell my friends over a drink.