Meeting: End Result/Ultimate Outcome

The best ledes start with the ending.

That is, a great lede is hooked on end result and ultimate outcome: how did things end? What was the final outcome? Was it happily ever after, or not?

In this case, the end result as the council action: it ultimately decided to donate land for the homeless shelter.

So this lede fell short:

The Grand Ledge City Council held a meeting yesterday regarding the proposal to build a homeless shelter on Garland Avenue.

Let's repeat the football analogy: this would be akin to writing a lede like, The Michigan State football team played a game yesterday against Notre Dame. The news isn't that something took place; it's what resulted at whatever took place. In the case of the game, it's who won or lost. In the case of the council, it's how they voted and what action they took.

This lede wasn't much better:

Last night, the Grand Ledge City Council held a meeting to vote on the donation and construction of a homeless shelter where the old fire station once stood on Garland Avenue.

Again, let's translate this to footballese: Last night, the Michigan State football team hoped to beat Notre Dame. It takes a step in the right direction by noting intent, but still falls way short of ultimate outcome.

This lede gets to ultimate outcome, but never says what the ultimate outcome was!

A decision has been made on the plan to continue producing housing for homeless people who populate Grand Ledge.

This might have been acceptable if your nut graf said what the decision was. But while the nut graf said the council voted on whether to donate land and that the decision as a majority vote, it never said whether they voted to donate or not donate land until the last graf!

That would be like holding off on saying who won the football game until the last graf, when this was your lede: A winner has finally emerged from the Michigan State-Notre Dame football game. Simply not good.

And very serious. Ledes that fail to address how things ended up and where things are at now are confusing and less-than-useful to readers. It defeats the purpose of journalism, which is to sum things up and update readers to the latest and newest happenings. In that regard, even if your story was otherwise well-written, I severely docked you for missing your lede or "burying" your lede well within a story.

This lede closes the job, like a lede saying, Michigan State's football team beat Notre Dame 147-0 last night would:

The Grand Ledge City Council voted 6-1 in a meeting yesterday to donate a former fire station site, valued at $500,000, to a project for a new homeless shelter.

Plus, here's a good lede/nut graf combo, where the nut graf further detailed from the lede the what (vote = 6-1) and why (land donation = old fire house) and added the why:

The Grand Ledge City Council voted yesterday to approve a land donation to the Coalition for the Homeless, Inc. valued at $500,000.

The City Council voted 6-1 to donate land to the coalition to build a new shelter at the old fire station on Garland Avenue for the homeless after the old shelter, the First United Methodist Church, became overcrowded and couldn't afford housing and feeding all of the homeless people.

You can't have a good story without a good lede, folks.