Robbery: WHO, What, When, Where, Why

A few of you never named the robber. Why in earth wouldn't you?

I mean, the name is central to the story: WHO robbed the store. WHO was shot dead. Right?

Don't forget to include all the five W's (who, what, when, where, why) and the one H that accompanies it (how).

Others failed to name the robber until very late in the story, after generically referring to a gunman repeatedly in the story. Ideally, you'd want to ID the robber no later than the nut graf -- since WHO did the robbing and WHO was killed was a very major W among the 5 W's -- and go from there.

Just like you didn't wait to identify Layoux by name, don't wait to ID people who are considered central to the story. A person killed whose actions triggered everything else that happened -- Layoux having to use his gun, Layoux losing his job as a result -- isn't a bit player whose name can wait until later, like the district attorney or a cop who showed up after everything was over.

Robbery: Who, What, When, WHERE, Why

Did you need to cite the store's specific street address? Isn't that a basic and helpful identifier of WHERE this happened?

Wouldn't people wonder WHERE? Whether this was near their home? Or was the store they go to?

The lede probably wasn't a good place for that -- a first attribution simply as a Haslett convenience store, or a local O-Mart store would have been fine -- but an address with a subsequent attribution would have been helpful.

I'm just sayin'.

School: A Good Lede/Nut Graf Sequence

Let's take a look at this lede/but graf/body grouping.

The East Lansing School Board unanimously voted Tuesday night to ban boys from playing on girls' teams, after concerns were raised that male athletes could pose a hazard for female players.

The policy, which will take effect immediately, was implemented after four boys made the East Lansing High School girls' field hockey team. Many teams from opposing schools forfeited their games in order to avoid the possibility of their players being injured by the male athletes.

After receiving complaints in home and away districts, school board member Jane Tribitt decided it was time for a policy change.

"The boys are just too big and physical and it intimidates the girls on the team," Tribitt said. "It is a matter of safety."

Senior Jacob Stevens, who played on the field hockey team, thinks the policy is unfair and while he was on the team, none of the girls complained about his presence, he said.

East Lansing High School Athletic Director Hugh Baker said he believes the policy will hurt the school's athletics program, because the school would have to forfeit games against teams with male players due to safety concerns.

"It would be unfair to force our field hockey team to have a losing record every year because it has to forfeit all those games," Baker said.

East Lansing resident Sandra Adler, who has a daughter on the field hockey team, is in favor of the new policy.

"I just don't think it's healthy mentally or physically to have the boys and girls playing on the same team," Adler said.

First, you have a nice lede that says what happened (boys were banned), when it happened (Tuesday), who did the decision making (the board) and who is going to be affected (boys), and why it was made (safety concerns).

 Then the nut graf expands on that: it says exactly when the decision takes effect (immediately), and exactly why it was made (after four boys were on the team, and it forced other schools to forfeit games).

It mines a second layer of supporting info that is helpful for the reader to have to make sense of what happened.

Then, once the lede and nut graf is established, you get into the he-said and she-said and quotes and the supporting evidence that lays down what your lede concluded and your nut graf expanded upon.

You start with getting a paraphrase from a board member -- a decision-maker on this issue -- on why she voted yes; then you pair it with a related quote.

Then, you get an opposing viewpoint -- that from an affected player -- and pair that with a related quote.

Then, you get the perspective of someone caught in the middle -- the athletic director, who opposes the policy but is responsible for enforcing it -- followed by a related quote.  


Then, you wrap it up with an outside but relevant viewpoint; that of a parent of a athlete. And you also pair it with a related quote.


So you have a lede that meets the Peanut Barrel rule; a nut graf that helps expand on the lede and provide a pivot into the greater story; and then information sets in descending order of criticality to the story, each paired with quotes.


What do you think of the job done here?

Ledes: Ledes I Liked

I'm happy to say that everybody did no worse than pretty good in this assignment, which in the past has been an ungraded piece of classwork. This year I'm going to give you some credit, though: you all get a boost to your overall quiz grade that's equivalent to 10 out of 10 on a single quiz. Which everybody could use.

On this first assignment, it was far less important that I grade you and more critical that you get used to writing in a journalistic style and under a newsroom-type deadline before it starts counting for something.

Still, I think you're right where you need to be. Let's look at some of the ledes I thought worked well:

Forty-three percent of American marriages break up within 15 years due to marrying young and being less religious, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

It identifies the most telling statistic, highlights it and provides a source for it. Nice work. This one collects a variety of factors:

Women who are wealthy, religious, college-educated, and at least 20 years old when they marry are less likely to get divorced, according to the Centers for Disease Control.


Next is this:

Mayor Datolli will introduce a new panhandling ordinance next week that will provide one-way bus tickets out of town to vagrants.

It has who: the mayor who is acting, and homeless people being acted upon (though is it okay to call them vagrants, or is that a stereotypical slur that should have been replaced with the term "homeless people"?). It has what: the mayor wanting to boot the homeless out of here. It has when: as soon as next week. It has how: one-way bus tickets for the homeless. Four of six W's are covered here, and in only 22 words.

Next is this:

A local swimming pool is being sued for extensive injuries to a local resident who claims swimming officials failed to warn him of immediate lightning danger last summer.

Again, it sums everything you need to know in a simple, straightforward way. This next lede -- which was done by my fall 2011 class, and not this one -- went a step further, and honed in on context:

Erik Barsh was going to be a senior tennis star until last summer when he was struck by lightning. Now he is in a legal volley with the city.

This is a more complex type of lede known by various terms, including a delayed lede (where the lede sets up a following nut graf that reads more like a basic lede) and an anecdotal lede (where in this case you are humanizing the subject a bit before plunging into the reason why this particular human is worthy of news coverage).

I didn't plan for you guys doing anything beyond a basic lede for this exercise, and it's fine that you did not. We'll talk about alternate ledes and as the term goes on I'll encourage you to try more complex forms of story-telling. But if you want to fall back on the basic lee structure for now, that's perfectly fine. What I want to see you demonstrate for now is proper identification and fact selection. And a basic lede does that just fine.


Now, there are some things missing from these and other ledes, like proper use of the word allegedly, and proper attribution use and style. But since we haven't learned those things yet, you weren't docked. And we'll get to learning those things very soon.

Out-of-Class Story #3 -- The Written Version

Here's one story on texting while driving that has not yet been published by anybody. But I couldn't wait to show you. It really shows strong command of organization, research and the broad use of perspectives. Plus, a wonderful anecdotal lede. What do you come away with after reading this, regarding what you can do to write the best stories you can?

Despite the texting and driving ban that was implemented in Michigan last July, Cody Aiken still finds a way to get around the law.

Aiken, an agribusiness management sophomore from Michigan State University, said he used to text all the time while driving, and he would hold his hands up on the steering wheel.

“Now I try to do it under the wheel, which is a lot harder,” he said.

Aiken said he doesn’t think the laws are working because a lot of people are still going to text, and everyone can have an excuse for why they were looking down.

“I was wiping something off my pants, or something like that,” he said.

The laws banning texting and driving have caused no reduction in accidents so far, according to a report released from the Highway Data Loss Institute last September. In fact, the crash rates have risen slightly.

The National Safety Council website said a minimum of 200,000 crashes each year are caused by drivers who are texting.

Dr. David Strayer, professor of psychology at the University of Utah who researches texting and driving, said the number of text messages sent in general keeps increasing, and some are sent while people are driving.

“It’s a big problem,” he said. “We see that it’s exploding.”

Strayer said the laws aren’t as effective as they would have liked because they are not enforced the best and people try to scam the system by doing things such as holding the phone lower.

He said this poses more risk of an accident because a person’s eyes are off the road and their hands are off the steering wheel for a longer period of time.

Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police, said officers are trained to observe driving that is unusual, according to an email.

“Just as there are cues that would indicate a driver is impaired behind the wheel, officers can also spot a potential texting driver,” she said.

However, she said between August 2010 and March 2011, the Michigan State Police have only issued 27 citations for texting and driving. Twenty-five verbal warnings have been given.

Jim Miller, safety and health engineer at DTE Energy, said it is difficult to legislate safe driving habits. For example, the law says the vehicle has to be in motion, so people could be texting while sitting at red lights.

“I think it has been effective in curbing the number of drivers who are texting while they are driving,” he said.

Addison Brown, a finance sophomore at Michigan State University, said he thinks the ban is a great idea, but he doesn’t think the law can be enforced well.

He said people pulled over won’t admit to texting, and they may say they were calling or doing something else. He said there should be more awareness out there rather than a ban.

“Use common sense,” he said. “People don’t need to be texting and driving.”

Despite the laws not seeming to work as well as hoped, Dr. David Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and part of the cognition and cognitive neuroscience program, said it is still terrible to be texting while driving.

He said people need to be using the same processes for dealing with information when they are driving as when they are texting.

“The brain has limited capacity for processing this information,” he said.

Miller said texting is particularly dangerous because it involves all three types of distractions - visual, manual, and cognitive.

“It is simply distracted driving,” he said.

According to Meyer, texting and driving is similar to drunk driving. Even though someone’s abilities are highly impaired, they can still keep the car going.

“What matters is the potential for accidents happening under complicated driving situations,” he said.

He said complicated situations include having to make a sudden turn, being in busy traffic, or being in an environment where people are crossing the street. Those are when problems usually occur.

Strayer said a .08 blood alcohol level causes a crash risk increase that is four times higher than normal, while texting and driving causes an eightfold crash risk increase.

He said driving is probably the riskiest activity people engage in on a regular basis, and people tend to get a false sense of security while driving.

“Multitasking to relieve boredom isn’t worth someone else’s life,” he said.

As far as the future of the law, Miller said “I would expect it to be expanded to encompass all electronic devices that would require your use of hands to operate them.”

Meyer said the law ought to say people are not allowed to use other devices while driving.

He said when vehicles are made that operate themselves, then people can text and have cell phone conversations.

Aiken said he has adopted the strategy of handing his phone to a passenger and asking them to read the message aloud. He tells them what to text back.

In Michigan, texting while driving is a primary offense, according to Tiffany Brown. This means officers can pull someone over solely because they suspect they were texting while driving.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association website, 30 states, D.C. and Guam ban all drivers from texting and driving. An additional eight states ban novice drivers from texting and driving

Who, what, WHEN, where, why?

What's missing here?

A young man struck my lightning is now suing the city for negligence, claiming that the lifeguards gave him no warnings.

And here?

A local teenager is suing the city for the costs of medical bills and damages as he blames the city's lifeguards for his being struck by lightning at the municipal swimming pool.