More Ledes: What Crashed? What Died? How much?

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:

A local groom fatally crashed while speeding towards church to get married early this morning, according to a police report.


He must have been a fast runner.

I say that because you didn't say he crashed while driving his car. All you say is that he crashed, nothing else included. Coulda been riding a bike or a train or a plane, or nothing at all.

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.

Also, look for details that are easy to understand, and try to add those where you can. In many of your jail ledes you referred to a new fee. But part of context in the story is how much the fee is. After all, a $2 fee isn't much of a story, but a $2,000 fee is.

And it would have been so easy to add the amount by calling the new fee a new $25 fee. Not exactly adding much wordiness there. But it adds so much context and meaning.