Practice Ledes: How Much Info Is Too Little Info?

One of you wrote in a lede that a carjacking was done at the hands of a six-foot white male. Is race relevant in this case?

It depends entirely on whether there's enough details in the subsequent story to result in a specific description that narrows the suspect pool, rather than broadening it to an extreme and unreasonable amount.

So, if later in the story you added more descriptive details, like it was a bearded heavyset man in his 50s who was wearing a tube top and pajama pants, then that would be a description that readers would fine useful and specific. If they spotted the man, they'd have a good idea it was the right person and could choose to call police.

But if all you have is that it was a six-foot white male, all you're doing is implicating every six-foot white male that readers come across (including me and a couple of you guys, too). It's useless information that at best wastes everybody's time and at worst perpetuates stereotypes.

So make sure that if you're including descriptions that you have enough detail to make a descrption relevant and useful.