Stats: A Good Example

A good lede, good nut graf, good attribution, good sequence of supporting info; just good.

Today, more than 76 percent of children from ages 3 to 17 have access to a computer, according to the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in October.

            This is a dramatic change from when personal computer usage first began in households in 1984. Then, only 8.2 percent of households reported that they owned a household computer, according to the census bureau.

            Household Internet usage has remained a little below that of household computer usage, according to the census bureau.

            In 1984, Internet usage was non-existent, according to the census bureau.

            In 1997, when more than 36 percent of households owned computers, 18 percent of those were accessing the Internet, according to the census bureau.

            Today, when nearly 62 percents of households own computers, nearly 55 percent of them are able to access the Internet, according to the census bureau.

            Where households did not own a computer, only two percent of them reported that they accessed the Internet outside of the home, according to the census bureau.

            Over 45 percent of households still do not access the Internet, including some that own household computers, according to the census bureau.

            Of these households, 22 percent found the cost of Internet prohibitive, while 41 percent were not interested in accessing the Internet at all, according to the census bureau.

Stats: A Good Alternate Lede

I've been very focused on you all doing basic journalism: a to-the-point lede, a strong nut graf, frequent attribution, and so forth.

But the goal isn't to write basic stories with basic ledes; it's to use the qualities of structure, simple and direct language, attribution and such to then reinstall creativity to our writing, so that we have something that is both fun to read AND fun to write; something that is engaging in style yet solid in journalistic principles.

I think this story -- and its alternate lede -- does a good job of marrying fundamentals and a fun-to-read style. Note how it's not creativity for creativity's sake; it's an artistic style entirely rooted in the facts you're trying to emphasize:  

It’s the device that changed the lives of many people.

It has become the go-to for information regarding the news, weather, research, latest celebrity gossip and much, much more.

What is it?

It’s the computer.

There has been a dramatic growth of computer ownership and Internet use in American households from the early 1980s until now, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The U.S. Census Bureau conducted the survey as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS) on household computer ownership and Internet use by Americans.

The CPS is a large nationally representative survey of approximately 50,000 households conducted each month by the U.S. Census Bureau; this particular survey was conducted in October, said the survey.

The survey shows that since the early 1980s when computers first entered households, the number of households owning a computer has increased from 8.2 percent to 61.8 percent of 113.1 million American households.

According to the survey, of the 61.8 percent of households with computers, 54.7 percent access the Internet from home.

“Today, more than 76 percent of children ages 3 to 17 have access to a computer, as do 57 percent of all adults ages 18+,” said the survey.

Although computers and the Internet are becoming popular in the majority of American households, they aren’t for everyone.

According to the survey, of the 45.3 percent of households that don’t access the Internet but have computers, have a variety of reasons given for not connecting to the Internet.

A few main reasons given were having computers that are inadequate to access the Internet, people who felt they don’t need the Internet or weren’t interested in it, and the cost of the Internet was too high, said the survey.

The survey also said that many people don’t access the Internet because of a lack of time, lack of skill, language barriers, privacy and security concerns, and concerns about children accessing questionable material on the Internet.

Stats: A Lot Of Youze Guys ...

... were thrown off by the press release starting so heavily with background about the survey before moving on to what the survey found.

That led many of you to offer generic background on the survey -- it's been conducted since 1942, it polls 50,000 households, ect. -- ahead of what the survey found regarding Internet use -- most households now use computers, and the number has drastically grown over the past few decades.

And it led some of you to lede with the fact a survey was taken, rather than what the survey discovered!

All because something is first in a press release -- or a city council meeting, or a football game -- doesn't mean it's worth prominent mention or a lede. Your lede is based on the Peanut Barrel values we've discussed all semester (and in that case, it's not, Hey! A survey was taken! right?) and where you rank information is based on most relevant to least relevant, and not necesarily the order in which things were presented.

Don't fall for the sequence trap. Rank information on value to the reader and support for your story's central premise.

Speech: A Good Example

Just a nice example of a good lede, good attribution, and a good sprinkling of facts and quotes.

Halloween used to be about costumes and candy, but kids are now being tricked to associate the holiday with a new treat — alcohol.

            Yesterday, just days before Halloween, Surgeon General Tom Izzo spoke at a PTA convention in East Lansing about how alcohol has bombarded Halloween.

            “Halloween and hops do not mix,” Izzo said.

            Izzo said the wide acceptance of alcohol could be part of the reasoning behind why young people drink.

            Izzo said according to the National Coalition on Television Violence, the average American child sees 75,000 drinking scenes on television before the age of 18.

            “Alcohol is the number one substance abuse problem among America’s youth,” Izzo said. “In fact, it is the only drug whose use has not been declining, according to our most recent National High School Senior Survey.”

            Izzo said according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, currently 4.6 million teens have a drinking problem.

            Izzo said alcohol affects most organs, and can be contributed to diseases such as hypertension and cancer of the esophagus.

            “Let us not make this year the year they robbed the kids of Halloween,” Izzo said. “For their sake and our own, let us keep Halloween sane, safe — and sober.”

           

Squirrels: Ledes I Liked

A good number of good grades on this assignment. Good job, folks!

Additionally, you guys took different lede/nut graf approaches, offering a sampling of different ways to do the story. Here's a few examples. This first one was a basic lede/nut graf that did the job well. The lede summed up the problem; the nut graf detailed the consequences, and then you launch into the individual examples of squirrel-insipred woe:

         Lansing Community College officials are blaming squirrels for a recent run of car damage across campus.

 
          Students, teachers and staff members have faced repair bills amounting to hundreds of dollars after squirrels began nesting in their cars.


Here, you did an anecdotal lede that took several grafs before getting to the nut graf:

           For the past few weeks, Oliver Brookes couldn’t figure out why one headlight on his van refused to work.

           Despite having it replaced, the associate professor of English at Lansing Community College said he had continual problems with the headlight in his van. When he opened up the hood to poke around, he was greeted by more than just wires and machinery.

            “There was a big squirrel’s nest in the corner where the light wires were,” he said.

            Lately, squirrels have been causing quite the hassle for many LCC students and staff members by finding refuge under the hoods of cars.

In these next two, you had some fun with word play with fun alternate ledes followed by more to-the-point nut grafs:

         Nutty car problems have been occurring for the student body and faculty members of Lansing Community College this past school year.

          University officials have determined that squirrels are to blame for the issues students, teachers and staff members have been experiencing with their vehicles.

... and ... 

                  Problems with your car? A furry friend may be the cause.

                  College officials at Lansing Community College are blaming squirrels for car problems being had by students, teachers, and staff members. 

... and ...  

             Students, teachers, and staff members at Lansing Community College are going nuts courtesy of many problems caused by a familiar animal: the common squirrel.

             Officials at LCC are blaming squirrels for an influx of car problems affecting individuals who work at and attend the institution.

And these silly ledes are okay. Why? Because this is a silly story. It's not because of your writing preference; it's because the tone is true to the facts. And the facts are unexpected and weird and yes, silly.

As long as you let the facts dictate the tone, then you're doing it based not on opinion but on factual context.

Each of these ledes is a good, solid lede. But which ones do you think worked best? And why?

With each of these lede/nut graf sequences, the writers followed by offering the fact/quote sequences that we talked about earlier. So does this story -- which I will show you in its complete form -- that starts with an alternative lede, then goes to two nut grafs, then launches into the compartmentalized individual examples. This is a good structure which to aspire to:

       In Lansing, there is a new addition to the squirrel’s diet — electrical wires.

       The squirrels on Lansing Community College’s campus have been making homes and feeding on the electrical wires in cars on campus.

       The damage from the squirrels is costing students and staff money to replace ruined wires.

       LCC dietitian Linda Kasparov said an attendant at a service station found a squirrel’s nest as the cause of broken a oil-pressure gauge, speedometer and headlights on Kasparov’s car.

        “The attendant put up the hood and then jumped back exclaiming, ‘My God, what have you got in there!’” Kasparov said.

       Kasparov said the attendant found three baby squirrels in a nest built of string, sticks and plastic bags. 

       Kasparov said the damage cost her more than $400.

       Laura Ruffenboch, a wildlife professor at LCC, said the soybean-based insulation on many electrical wires may be appealing to the squirrels.

        Ruffenboch said squirrels building nests in a car which is used regularly is an uncommon phenomenon.

       Oliver Brookes, an associate professor of English at LCC, also said he found a squirrel’s nest under the hood of his car.

       “There was a big squirrels nest in the corner where the light wires were,” Brookes said.

       Brookes said the squirrels chewed through the headlight wiring in his car, which cost more than $180 to replace.

Controversial: Good Story Structure

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 said she 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, said he 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?

JRN 200: The Body Of A News Story

The most basic story structures are very specific in style yet simple in design. So let's look an imaginary story done in a basic news style, starting with what you already know -- the lede:

School was canceled forever today after a 43-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

The lede is usually followed by what is called the nut graf. The role of that paragraph is to elaborate and expand upon the details of the lede.

Consider the general identifiers posed in the lede: an unnamed instructor, an unnamed school, an unspecified big-money lottery ect. Try to follow up on those generalities with specifics in the nut graf, like this:

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

In journalism, we try to keep paragraphs fairly short -- usually limited to one main point or idea per graf, and/or one or two sentences per graf. In this case, I thought the nut graf was running a bit long, so I split it into two grafs.

We try to keep paragraphs short and specific for two big reasons: one, to make it easy for the reader to identify key points and specific quotes and such; and two, to make it easy for editors to do the same so they can more quickly edit the story by easily finding what may be worth emphasis or cutting out.

The point after the nut graf is a great place to consider putting in a telling quote; something that goes to the heart of the story's theme or context or ultimate meaning. Something like this:

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

At this point, the lede/nut graf/key quote package creates sort of a mini-story. In the same way the lede gives you the bare minimum of what you need to know about the story, this grouping of grafs gives readers the minimum amount of information AND supporting detail and evidence.

From this point on, you have a couple of options: you can add more supporting facts and quotes, in descending order of importance. This is called the inverted pyramid style of story organization. You start with the most important piece of background, then the next most important, and so on. Like with short paragraphs, it allows for faster reading and editing. Like this:

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

Notice how pieces of telling information are paired up with quotes supporting, amplifying and humanizing that raw data. It's not necessary that every graf of info is followed by a related quote, but it does help in reinforcing the points that are made throughout a story.

Also, please note attribution is liberally used throughout the story, in every graf after the lede. That's for the benefit of readers, who get to see exactly where you get each bit of information that supports the original claim you make in your lede. Not only are you transparent, but you essentially rely on the expertise of your sources by citing them, building your credibility.

Another approach is to offer a chronological telling, looking at things from the start. It's important that you weigh the facts you have and the context of the story to decide if an inverted pyramid, chronology or some other method best tells the story. Like this:

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

And that's it. Notice how the story seems to end sort of abruptly. Looks weird, right? Well, in journalism that's okay is your story lacks what writers call a satisfying ending. Why is this okay? Because you already have an ending: your lede.

Now that we looked at these two structures in pieces, let's put it all together and look at the pieces as stories. First, the inverted pyramid:

School was canceled forever today after a 43-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

*****

Now, the chronological style:

*****

School was canceled forever today after a 43-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

Now, which is the best structure to use: inverted pyramid or chronology? Again, it depends on what best tells the story.

If you're writing about something complex where impact and meaning doesn't necessarily happen in sequence -- like a tuition increase or comparing on-campus and off-campus housing -- then structuring things based on an analyzed importance may be the way to go.

But of the story you're looking into naturally and dramatically unfolds in order -- like a bank robbery or 9/11 -- then a chronology probably works best.

A lot of it depends on what kind of facts you dig up while reporting. Note in each approach, some facts get greater or lesser emphasis, and some facts get entirely left out. You should think about which approach best uses the most important, relevant, interesting and useful facts. Whichever does is probably the highest and best approach to take.

Let me be clear, though: these are NOT the only two story structure options you have. As you've read in the book and probably noticed in your newspaper readings, there are endless ways to write ledes and detail nut grafs and add quotes and cascade facts throughout a story.

You're first and foremost looking for the best way to tell a story, based on what makes meaning and context and accuracy clear and easy to follow.

These are just two basic ways to do that. Master this, and then start practicing other ways.

Stats: A Lot of Youze Guys ...

... were thrown off by the press release starting so heavily with background about the survey before moving on to what the survey found.

That led many of you to offer generic background on the survey -- it's been conducted since 1942, it polls 50,000 households, ect. -- ahead of what the survey found regarding Internet use -- most households now use computers, and the number has drastically grown over the past few decades.

And it led some of you to lede with the fact a survey was taken, rather than what the survey discovered!

All because something is first in a press release -- or a city council meeting, or a football game -- doesn't mean it's worth prominent mention or a lede. Your lede is based on the Peanut Barrel values we've discussed all semester (and in that case, it's not, Hey! A survey was taken! right?) and where you rank information is based on most relevant to least relevant, and not necesarily the order in which things were presented.

Don't fall for the sequence trap. Rank information on value to the reader and support for your story's central premise.

Speech: Good Quote

This one was:

"Let us not make this year, the year they robbed the kids of Halloween," Izzo said. "For their sake and our own, let us keep Halloween sane, safe -- and sober."

Telling quote. It really got to the point of what many of you hooked your stories upon.

Then why did so many of you use it late in your stories?

The better a quote and the more it directly supports your central premise of key premises of your story, the more prominent and higher up that quote should be.

Many of you ended your stories with a great quote, like this one. I get the feeling that you're trying to create what in writing is called a satisfying ending; one that offers a conclusion.

In traditional English composition, such a conclusion is necessary. In journalism, since we start with the conclusion it is not. On most regular straight news stories, it's completely fine to simply let the story trail off, even if it seems like the ending is abrupt.

If you're writing in inverted pyramid style, you rank information in the order of importance, so your story should essentially trail off. If you're writing a chronology, you can stop writing just short of the conclusion since your reader will already know how things ended; they learned that in the lede.

The notable exception would be if you were writing some sort of feature narrative, which we really don't get into in this class. So, nyah.

JRN 200: The Body Of A News Story

The most basic story structures are very specific in style yet simple in design. So let's look an imaginary story done in a basic news style, starting with what you already know -- the lede:

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

The lede is usually followed by what is called the nut graf. The role of that paragraph is to elaborate and expand upon the details of the lede.

Consider the general identifiers posed in the lede: an unnamed instructor, an unnamed school, an unspecified big-money lottery ect. Try to follow up on those generalities with specifics in the nut graf, like this:

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

In journalism, we try to keep paragraphs fairly short -- usually limited to one main point or idea per graf, and/or one or two sentences per graf. In this case, I thought the nut graf was running a bit long, so I split it into two grafs.

We try to keep paragraphs short and specific for two big reasons: one, to make it easy for the reader to identify key points and specific quotes and such; and two, to make it easy for editors to do the same so they can more quickly edit the story by easily finding what may be worth emphasis or cutting out.

The point after the nut graf is a great place to consider putting in a telling quote; something that goes to the heart of the story's theme or context or ultimate meaning. Something like this:

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

At this point, the lede/nut graf/key quote package creates sort of a mini-story. In the same way the lede gives you the bare minimum of what you need to know about the story, this grouping of grafs gives readers the minimum amount of information AND supporting detail and evidence.

From this point on, you have a couple of options: you can add more supporting facts and quotes, in descending order of importance. This is called the inverted pyramid style of story organization. You start with the most important piece of background, then the next most important, and so on. Like with short paragraphs, it allows for faster reading and editing. Like this:

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

Notice how pieces of telling information are paired up with quotes supporting, amplifying and humanizing that raw data. It's not necessary that every graf of info is followed by a related quote, but it does help in reinforcing the points that are made throughout a story.

Also, please note attribution is liberally used throughout the story, in every graf after the lede. That's for the benefit of readers, who get to see exactly where you get each bit of information that supports the original claim you make in your lede. Not only are you transparent, but you essentially rely on the expertise of your sources by citing them, building your credibility.

Another approach is to offer a chronological telling, looking at things from the start. It's important that you weigh the facts you have and the context of the story to decide if an inverted pyramid, chronology or some other method best tells the story. Like this:

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

And that's it. Notice how the story seems to end sort of abruptly. Looks weird, right? Well, in journalism that's okay is your story lacks what writers call a satisfying ending. Why is this okay? Because you already have an ending: your lede.

Now that we looked at these two structures in pieces, let's put it all together and look at the pieces as stories. First, the inverted pyramid:

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

*****

Now, the chronological style:

*****

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

Now, which is the best structure to use: inverted pyramid or chronology? Again, it depends on what best tells the story.

If you're writing about something complex where impact and meaning doesn't necessarily happen in sequence -- like a tuition increase or comparing on-campus and off-campus housing -- then structuring things based on an analyzed importance may be the way to go.

But of the story you're looking into naturally and dramatically unfolds in order -- like a bank robbery or 9/11 -- then a chronology probably works best.

A lot of it depends on what kind of facts you dig up while reporting. Note in each approach, some facts get greater or lesser emphasis, and some facts get entirely left out. You should think about which approach best uses the most important, relevant, interesting and useful facts. Whichever does is probably the highest and best approach to take.

Let me be clear, though: these are NOT the only two story structure options you have. As you've read in the book and probably noticed in your newspaper readings, there are endless ways to write ledes and detail nut grafs and add quotes and cascade facts throughout a story.

You're first and foremost looking for the best way to tell a story, based on what makes meaning and context and accuracy clear and easy to follow.

These are just two basic ways to do that. Master this, and then start practicing other ways.

Missing: Different Types of Lede/Nut Graf Combos

Most of you were direct and to the point in your ledes and then built upon that fact with a nut graf that helped answer questions created by the lede, like this:

In 2011 in Michigan alone, a total of 57,152 people were reported missing at one time or another, according to the U.S. Justice Department.


Among the people missing are crime victims, runaway adolescents, people with Alzheimer's disease, distant parents, people who have tried to run away from their debt and people who have run away with lovers.

And that was fine. The lede established the basic premise of the story in a simple and direct manner. And then the nut graf that helped answer questions created by the lede, like, "why do they disappear?"


Some of you tried to take things a step further by looking at the basic fact AND a telling subfact, like, "who is it that disappears?":


Troubled youths and runaways make up for three-fourths of the 57,152 missing people reported in Michigan last year, according to the U.S. Justice Department.


Out of Michigan's missing, 48,384 people were found with another 9,000 still missing. Police estimate that people missing involuntarily total no more than 100 in number.

Here, the nut graf expands on details by looking at how many of the 57,000 plus are still gone, and how many of those are gone against their will. It drills down into that 57,000-plus number a bit.

A few of you tried an anecdotal lede. This one had a lede that covered tw grafs offering a personal anecdote symbolic of the larger problem, and then the third (nut) graf hits on that broader problem in a tone that sounds like a traditional straight lede:

Sabrina, a 14-year-old East Lansing resident and former runaway juvenile, is just one of the thousands of Michigan residents who have been rediscovered after earlier being reported as missing.

When Sabrina's parents divorced, she skipped town and moved to New York t get away from an abusive stepfather. Sabrina was discovered two years after she was reported missing after New York City police picked her up for shoplifting and prostitution, said Sabrina, who spoke on the condition her last name not be used.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, of the 57,152 men, women and children reported missing in Michigan last year, nearly 9,000 remain missing. Three-fourths of Michigan's total missing persons last year were runaway juveniles.

Here's another ambitious anecdotal lede:

Fourteen-year-old Sabrina just needed to escape.

Escape from her parents' divorce.

Escape from her stepfather, who would get drunk and hit her mom.

Just escape.

Sabrina, who spoke on the condition her last name not be used, is among the 42,864 juveniles in Michigan who went missing last year, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Now, there's one way I think I could enhance these ledes, and that's with a telling quote from Sabrina that would help humanize the voice and perspective. In teh case of an anecdotal lede, the best place for a telling quote is between the lede and nut graf, and not after the nut graf like in a more traditional approach.

Which lede/nut graf combos do you like, or hate? And why?

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.

Stats -- Get To The Point

A good nut graf not only supports and details the lede, but supports and details what makes the lede most newsworthy.

If you're covering a football game, it's not that a game was played and that the game was part of a regular-season schedule and so forth; it's who won or lost, and why.

In the case of the stats story, what made it most newsworthy wasn't that a survey was taken; it's what the survey found. I think this two-graf nut graf sequence -- the type of which was repeated by quite a few of you on this exercise -- focused on the wrong thing:

A recent U.S. Census Bureau survey on American computer and internet use shows ownership and usage in households has dramatically increased since the early 1980s.

Conducted in October for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the survey came from a series of questionnaire supplements conducted as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a survey of about 50,000 households, is conducted each month by the U.S. Census Bureau, and has come to be used as a tool to measure many economic, demographic, and social conditions of the U.S. population.

Statistics from the survey include the age, sex, race, and education of the householder; the type, size, income, and number of children in the household; and the household’s region.

In 1984, 8.2 percent of U.S. households reported to the Census Bureau that they owned a home computer. By 1997, it increased to 36.6 percent. Currently, 61.8 percent of 113.1 million American households have one or more computers, shows the survey’s findings.

Now, that last graf does look like a nut graf to me: it directly details the study's findings. So, why not get rid of the two existing nut grafs and make that fourth graf your nut, like this:

A recent U.S. Census Bureau survey on American computer and internet use shows ownership and usage in households has dramatically increased since the early 1980s.

In 1984, 8.2 percent of U.S. households reported to the Census Bureau that they owned a home computer. By 1997, it increased to 36.6 percent. Currently, 61.8 percent of 113.1 million American households have one or more computers, shows the survey’s findings.

Then you could take the two excluded grafs and move them to the end of the story as background, or eliminate 'em altogether.

I think the confusion may have stemmed from the fact that the background info was offered to you first in the press release. All because something is offered to you first doesn't mean that you should recite it in the order it was presented.

Just as if you were covering a city council meeting, you need to evaluate a press release and decide what is most important to emphasize, what is second most important, and what is not at all important, and order the information you present in that order.

Out-Of-Class #1 -- Every Rose Has Its Thorns ...

Overall to date, this class has performed very well. In many ways you have been ahead of my previous JRN 200 classes in terms of your demonstrated ability and pace at which you picked up new skills.

I'm sorry to say the first out-of-class story assignment is NOT one of those examples. Only three people scored a 3.0 or higher. Just as many people fataled this assignment; an all-time high for a class I taught. Not good.

Still, it's your first assignment in a compacted class. Plus, you have a rewrite opportunity that has the potential of substantially improving your grade. It's critical that we learn from this first go-around and make many of the errors one-time-only deals.

Lets look at some common problems:

>>> This is not a good place to fatal. There were a total of three fatals; one of which was a time fatal. Even excluding that one, I've never had more than one person fatal on any single out-of-class story assignment.

The fatals definitely fall under the "catchable" category. In one, the author misspelled the name of President Barack Obama. Not only is that such a well-known name, but the example of misspelling Obama's name is actually an example in your syllabus of what constitutes a fatal.

The second author had two fatals: first, you had a misspelling in a quote, using "their" instead of "there." Any change from a literal quote is a fatal.

Second, you misspelled a source's name, which should have been caught because you had the correct spelling on your source list. If you have two different spellings of one name, you know at least one has to be wrong. You need to notice such inconsistencies.

I suspect you may have come close to a third fatal. In one section, that same author referred to auto facture instead of auto factory. A factory is a place where things are made; facture is the process of how something is made. (Facture is the root of manufcture, for example.)

Why I suspect the use of facture may have been unintended is because in 21 years of writing and teaching, plus roughly 40 years of being a voracious reader, I've never come across the word ever used, in any way, at all.

I'll say this again: spell check will not catch instances where you misspell a word in which the misspelling creates a correctly-spelled but unintended word.

>>> Do your own work. There was a distinct lack of original reporting in many of your stories. Instead of calling or emailing people, instead you used Web site content or the reporting of other media.

Using such sources are acceptable either as secondary sourcing or as a last resort. They should not be used as primary sources. If you have one side of an issue interviewed in person and the other side you simply rely on such secondary sources, that is not reporting.

One story on the housing market cited ABC News and a Web report, but it didn't appear you got any data directly yourself. Neutral experts can direct you to such data. So can Google.

That is digging into one side of an issue and doing a lousy job of researching the other side. You lose the chance to discover things about the other side and to do a back-and-forth exchange where you learn of issues and perspectives and questions to ask the original side about. And that's not journalism.

And that leads to another common problem ...

>>> A lack of vision. Many of you hit hard one side of an issue, then touched on an opposing side, and then failed at all to look at other relevant perspectives. The latter is necessary in differentiating simple he-said she-said fight-enabling and true journalism that deconstructs an issue from various angles.

Many of you talked to people doing things, but not to people affected by things. Many of you talked to proponents and opponents, but not neutral experts who could help referee the opposing views.

Here are some examples:

>>> You don't consider who is affected. one story regarded STD among college students. You talked to college health officials and experts, but you failed to talk to the people affected: students. Do they rely on the health officials? Do they think the health institutions you highlighted are effective and useful? Do they even see STDs as a concern?

Another story dealt with shortages of prescription medicines. You talked to pharmacists. You cited federal regulators as your neutral expert, but instead of talking to them you jut referred to their Web site. You didn't at all appear to talk to drug manufacturers -- after all, they are the ones who are falling short in making drugs -- nor did you talk to those who are or could be impacted: patients!

Such examples went on and on. One story dealt with the housing market, but didn't quote a single home owner of home buyer. Another story regarded a municipal water park and talked to managers but never talked to those who paid for it and use it: taxpayers.

A story about plans to haul used nuclear generators down the St. Clair River talked to the power company planning to do it and even to a government official who has concerns about the plan, but never talked to are local residents and local officials who may have strong feelings about 16 radioactive generators sailing right by where they live.

>>> You had a lack of balance. One story on summer recreational programs allowed the managers of such programs to tout the benefits, but readers are fair to say managers will have a natural bias touting such programs; their paychecks depend on it.

Nowhere did you talk to a neutral expert -- perhaps a parks and recs prof -- on whether such programs are popular and whether people view them as much as a viable option to a real vacation as the managers do. Nor did you quote many ultimate judges of whether such programs are worth doing or equal to a more traditional getaway: area residents. The story was so one-sided, it essentially sounded like a press release rather than a news story.

>>> You needed wider perspective. Another story regarded an archaeological discovery my MSUers that you claimed would be a big help to history researchers. Well, of course MSUers would say their work is important. What about getting perspective from a researcher not from MSU?

One story concerned the Patriot Act. Your exploration of opposition rationale was far more detailed than that of proponents. You talked to an activist about why they hate the act, but you never talk to law enforcement official about why they like the act. At least you did cite a neutral expert: an MSU criminal justice prof.

>>> The lack of interviews pre-empted opportunities to catch potentially-misleading statements. The aquatic center story cited pool officials as saying the facility was covering operating costs. And that rang a huge bell for me.

Back in my Las Vegas days, I wrote that the Las Vegas Monorail was struggling. Monorail officials always tried to throw me under the bus, claiming they were making an operating profit; that is, they were bringing in enough in fares to cover what it cost to run the monorail every day.

The problem was, while fares covered operating costs, they did not cover capital costs; that is, paying back the money used to build the monorail. Saying you're covering operating costs is akin to saying your paycheck is covering all your bills, except your mortgage. Your bills minus your mortgage is your operating cost; your mortgage is your capital cost.

Now, how did I know this? It's not because I'm a fiscal genius. I flunked Econ 101 in college (though a lack of attendance probably had something to do with it). I knew that because I got a hold of a neutral expert -- in this case, a Wall Street bond analyst -- who highlighted that for me.

So I was able to write in 2007 -- on my next-to-last day at work -- that the monorail was on track to run out of cash reserves by 2010, a story that was immediately ripped by monorail officials who claimed I didn't know what I was talking about. By the way, the monorail filed for bankruptcy last year. And please note in the latter story how a monorail official is still insistent that the rail line is covering operating costs. Jeez, Louise ...

I didn't just take someone's word for it. I checked with neutral experts and I educated myself so I knew when I was being told the truth and when I was being misled.

>>> Finally, you told me but you didn't show me. It's not enough to lay out a point; you also have to show the proof and/or offer a translation.

You tell me in a nut graf that grads are fleeing Michigan, but it's not until the 27th graf do you offer data proving that point, via a moving company's study. Another nut graf notes more people are attending summer school at MSU, but it' not until graf eight you offer data from MSU enrollment data. You tell me HPV is MSU's most common STD, but you never say exactly what HPV is.

You tell me many students choose to live in the summer, but you never show me any statistics. What is the summer dorm population compared to the summer enrollment total? And how does that percentage compare to the regular school year?

In the drug shortage story, you say the shortages primarily revolve around injectables, but you never say what an injectable is, or what some examples of such drugs -- that readers may be familiar with -- are.

In a story about disaster planning, you tell me MSU has a plan, but you never detail what that plan entails: what kinds of scenarios it covers, and what it calls for students to do.

The summer programs story has an official telling you that summer sessions draw more people than during other parts of the year. Some numbers to nail that down would have been nice. You write about MIPs, but you never detail the consequences. Is it a felony or a misdemeanor? How much can you get fined? Can you go to jail?

Guys, we don't have a lot of time in this class to get these problems resolved. I wish we had more time, but we don't. But that's not an excuse for me to just say, "Oh well, too bad for you guys." We have to find a way to make this work, within the time restrictions we have. And we will.

But I need your help in helping you.

I urge you to act on the points made in this blog post and in whatever comments I made on your graded papers.

I urge EVERYONE to seriously consider a rewrite, as this (and each of the rest of the out-of-class stories) will have a significant impact on your final grade.

I urge you to take advantage of class times to ask questions asking me to explain concepts and strategies and to talk about how you could do better. I know no one likes asking what they may deem as a "stupid" question in class, but trust me, many of you face the same issues, and if we all ask questions (and get answers) as a group, we'll all do better, and do so more quickly.

I urge you to see me during my office hours to review your work and make sure you are utilizing good habits and avoiding bad ones. I will make office hours for you, if possible within my work schedule and needed for you to succeed.

I know this is going to mean a lot of work for you over the next three weeks. We have out-of-class stories and in-class work and multimedia stuff coming up. The next three weeks will be a bear, no matter what we do or don't do.

But we can make these next three weeks worth your time, by doing what we need to do to get the grade that truly reflects your ability. Everyone here is smart enough to get a solid grade in here. Now, we need to make sure that we connect that potential with demonstrating that ability.

Let's do this.

Bicyclists -- What's The Point?

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 intrugues 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.

A lede centered on the accident simply as something that happened would leave something to be desired. Yes, the accident was the most serious consequence here. But four months ago as a long time ago. That has to be very old news.

Given the disparity in time, I think it would have been wise to emphasize the timelier event, which of course was still directly connected to the accident since it was the reason she was in the hospital in the first place. This lede did that:

A McDonald's manager was released from Omar Memorial Hospital Monday after being hit by a car and sent flying off her bike.

This lede is technically sound, other than missing a date fix for when she was hit by a car, which would simply require ending the sentence with four months ago. But I found a better lede, one that highlighted something that made this story a bit more interesting and may arguably be the main point of why this story is newsworthy, two days after the hospital release and four months after the crash: the fact that wrecking her body hasn't scared her off from riding.

For a 37-year-old bicyclist, a bicycle accident on Feb. 8 has not changed her attitude about riding a bike at all. In fact, she still wants to ride.

After Marsha Taylor suffered a concussion, broken neck, six broken ribs, a broken arm and broken pelvis from being it from behind by a car, sending her flying off her bike, she said if she could she'd still be out there riding now.

"It's hard to ride a bike when you have crutches," she said.

First, see how this was soooo Peanut Barrel:

"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?

Second, look at how nice of a lede/nut graf/telling quote combo this is. The nut graf nicely supports and amplifies the lede, and the quote puts a human voice and context on the previous grafs while also providing evidence for the reader.

This lede entirely disregarded the time element by putting the latest happening in a delayed lede role, and turned the accident into a mini-anecdote, like this:

Marsha Taylor was out for a routine bike ride about four months ago when her world was turned upside down.

Taylor -- a 37-year-old recreational cyclist who estimates she's logged about 3,500 riding miles this year -- said she was struck from behind by a car while on a roughly hour-long ride in early February.

The opening of this lede obviously isn't pegged to the time element, like the first lede we looked at. It instead is trying to set context and tell a bigger story that goes straight to the Peanut Barrel rule: that somebody was just doing their daily non-newsworthy thing when the switch on their normal life was flipped to the "off" position.

You know, it considers an angle that makes this story unique. It's ironic. It's contextual. It's a good lede, and great vision in terms of identifying what made a story truly different from the usual and expected.

Bicyclist -- She Said What?

Quotes are a great way to highlight a point, illustrate a fact and personalize a calculated telling.

For those of you who hooked the story on the angle that Taylor can't wait to write again, you had a golden quote to use:

"I still want to ride. If I could, I'd be out there right now, but it's hard to ride a bike when you have to use crutches," Taylor said.

Great quote, right? Looking at the get-back-on-that-horse lede, it would be a perfect quote to support and confirm the lede for readers, right? Sums up your main point nicely, does it not?

Then why do I find it in the last graf of some of your stories?

I think it would have been better positioned as the first quote you use in the story, ideally after the lede and nut graf and before you moved into the body of the story with a chronological telling.

It's not enough to find quotes that support central points of your story. It's not even enough to use quotes that support central points of your story. You should make sure the best quotes that best support your central points are ranked within your story in a spot that recognizes the prominence.

In the same way that it's not enough to have a story that's relevant, interesting and useful and that you need to have a lede where the relevance, interest and utility shine through; it's not enough to have a story with good quotes and you need to have a story where good quotes shine through.

Missing -- Hey, Look, Anecdotal Ledes!

Anecdotal ledes were certainly not required on this exercise. You were graded on how well you executed an strong, concise, fact-supported lede; and not based on which lede style you tried.

Still, I'm happy that some of you got away from basic ledes and tried anecdotes. Here's a few anecdotal lede/nut graf/telling quote combos:

When Jason Abare learned he would have to pay upwards of $800 a month in child support to his ex-wife, the decision to leave Cleveland was an easy one.

“I wasn’t going to give her a penny, not with the hell that woman put me through,” he said.

The 31-year-old carpenter skipped town, traveling around the country while avoiding authorities and refusing to pay child support.

Until his recent arrest and transport back to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County Jail earlier this year, Abare was but one of 57,152 men and women reported missing in the state of Ohio over this past year, according to statistics from the U.S. Justice Department. The case represents a growing trend in the state, one that has resulted in the ongoing disappearance of nearly 9,000 people, the department reports.

“I’ve worked around missing persons for the past 10 years, and it’s rare finding someone after more than a year,” Sgt. Manuel Cortez of the Cleveland Police Department said. “We find a lot of people disappear because they’ve got troubles, want to leave them behind and start over again.”

... and this ...

Two years after Sabrina’s parents got divorced, she was found by police a New York street, shoplifting and prostituting to get by.

After a change to her family, Sabrina, who requested anonymity and only gave her first name, said she just couldn’t take it anymore.

“I hated my stepfather,” Sabrina said. “He got drunk and hit my mom and expected us to wait on him like we were his slaves or something.

So the now 14-year-old found an older man going to New York, and convinced him to let her come along.

Sabrina is one of more than 450,000 runaway juveniles nationwide, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics. In Ohio, three of four missing persons reported last year were runaways, and 6,500 have not been found or located, the statistics say.

Sgt. Manuel Cortez of the Clevland Police Department, said it is rare finding a missing person after more than a year.

“We find a lot of people disappear because they’ve got troubles, want to leave and start all over again,” Manuel said.

... and this ...

Jason Abare currently sits in the county jail contemplating the circumstances that brought him there and the “bad luck” he believed led to his arrest.

Abare, 31, is detained on charges of nonsupport after fleeing the state to avoid paying monthly alimony checks to support his former wife and their four children. After years on the run, he was finally discovered by police after being pulled over for drunk driving.

Abare is one of the thousands of people in the United States who have gone missing in the past year. The problem of missing persons is one of great magnitude across the country. In Ohio alone, over 57,000 people have been reported “missing” in the past year. The reasons behind these many disappearances are widely varied.

Some, like Abare, go missing to avoid family issues that they do not want to deal with. Sabrina Diaz, a 14-year-old Cleveland resident, ran away from home to escape an abusive stepfather. “I hated my stepfather. He’s a jerk. He got drunk and hit my mom and expected us to wait on him like we were his slaves or something,” she said.

That's not to say there weren't some great straight lede/nut graf/telling quote combos, like this one:

Last year 57,152 people were reported missing in Ohio according to the U.S. Justice Department, but it may not be for the reasons you think.

When someone goes missing it is many people’s first reaction to assume that they were a victim of a bona fide crime like being kidnapped, robbed or murdered. This is rarely the case in comparison to the number of people who leave home decidedly for various reasons.

“We find a lot of people disappear because they’ve got troubles, want to leave them behind and start over again. A lot of people think about it, and some do more than think about it,” said Sgt. Manuel Cortez. Cortez works for the police department in Cleveland.

... and this one, where the nut graf and the telling quote were in fact the same thing ...

People go missing for a variety of different reasons, most commonly because they want to escape the life they had for a new, better one.

“We find a lot of people disappear because they’ve got troubles, want to leave them behind and start over again,” said Sgt. Manuel Cortez of the Cleveland Police Department. “A lot of people think about it, and some do more than think about it.”

... and this one was pretty good, too ...

In Ohio, people are being reported missing in astonishingly high numbers and it’s not just kidnappings, but rather much more than that.

Nearly 9,000 people remain missing and all for different reasons. These people are runaway kids, old people with Alzheimers, people running from their debts, young men and women in love, and even a few crime victims, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

While people assume that when a person they know goes missing it must be a crime, Police estimate that there are no more than 100 true crime victims and could be as few as 40 or 50.

But I was a bit taken aback by the use of "astonishingly" in the lede. I thought it was a bit much. Yeah, I know the info you were given offered that judgmental word, but all because you're given a word doesn't mean you have to use it. I didn't know if there was enough info to indicate it was astonishing, especially considering 300 million people live in this country.

Still, what do you think? Fair context or over the top? And which ledes do you think worked best here, and why?

Body Of A Story -- Two Basic Structures

The most basic story structures are very specific in style yet simple in design. So let's look an imaginary story done in a basic news style, starting with what you already know -- the lede:

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

The lede is usually followed by what is called the nut graf. The role of that paragraph is to elaborate and expand upon the details of the lede.

Consider the general identifiers posed in the lede: an unnamed instructor, an unnamed school, an unspecified big-money lottery ect. Try to follow up on those generalities with specifics in the nut graf, like this:

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

In journalism, we try to keep paragraphs fairly short -- usually limited to one main point or idea per graf, and/or one or two sentences per graf. In this case, I thought the nut graf was running a bit long, so I split it into two grafs.

We try to keep paragraphs short and specific for two big reasons: one, to make it easy for the reader to identify key points and specific quotes and such; and two, to make it easy for editors to do the same so they can more quickly edit the story by easily finding what may be worth emphasis or cutting out.

The point after the nut graf is a great place to consider putting in a telling quote; something that goes to the heart of the story's theme or context or ultimate meaning. Something like this:

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

At this point, the lede/nut graf/key quote package creates sort of a mini-story. In the same way the lede gives you the bare minimum of what you need to know about the story, this grouping of grafs gives readers the minimum amount of information AND supporting detail and evidence.

From this point on, you have a couple of options: you can add more supporting facts and quotes, in descending order of importance. This is called the inverted pyramid style of story organization. You start with the most important piece of background, then the next most important, and so on. Like with short paragraphs, it allows for faster reading and editing. Like this:

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

Notice how pieces of telling information are paired up with quotes supporting, amplifying and humanizing that raw data. It's not necessary that every graf of info is followed by a related quote, but it does help in reinforcing the points that are made throughout a story.

Also, please note attribution is liberally used throughout the story, in every graf after the lede. That's for the benefit of readers, who get to see exactly where you get each bit of information that supports the original claim you make in your lede. Not only are you transparent, but you essentially rely on the expertise of your sources by citing them, building your credibility.

Another approach is to offer a chronological telling, looking at things from the start. It's important that you weigh the facts you have and the context of the story to decide if an inverted pyramid, chronology or some other method best tells the story. Like this:

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

And that's it. Notice how the story seems to end sort of abruptly. Looks weird, right? Well, in journalism that's okay is your story lacks what writers call a satisfying ending. Why is this okay? Because you already have an ending: your lede.

Now that we looked at these two structures in pieces, let's put it all together and look at the pieces as stories. First, the inverted pyramid:

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Sofradzija, who has been making just $2 an hour teaching an introduction-to-journalism class, said he plans to never teach again.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," he said.

But a number of students said that losing Sofradzija as an instructor has sapped their will to learn.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

Sofradzija said he did not know what exactly he's spend his fortune on, but he promised it would be something stupid.

*****

Now, the chronological style:

*****

School was canceled forever today after a 42-year-old college instructor won a multi-billion dollar lottery, quitting his job and sparking a walkout among his students.

Omar Sofradzija, who teaches a journalism class at Michigan State University in East Lansing, won the $99 billion Amazeballs drawing Monday, after which he quit Tuesday, lottery officials said.

That was followed by a mass walkout by MSU students, and then cancelation of MSU classes the next day, university officials said.

"If there's no Omar, there simply isn't any point in having school," MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon said.

Events quickly began to unfold around 8 p.m. Monday, when Sofradzija was named the Amazeballs winner. His resignation was submitted to MSU by 6 a.m. Tuesday, school officials said.

"Seriously, eff those little brats," Sofradzija said.

Word quickly swirled around campus of Sofradzija's departure, with students walking out of their classes em masse throughout the day Tuesday, school officials said.

"If I can't learn from Omar, I can't learn. I'm that stupid," said Elvis Presley, a sophomore journalism major from Canada.

University leaders met that night before making the cancellation of the semester official at 8 a.m. today, officials said.

Now, which is the best structure to use: inverted pyramid or chronology? Again, it depends on what best tells the story.

If you're writing about something complex where impact and meaning doesn't necessarily happen in sequence -- like a tuition increase or comparing on-campus and off-campus housing -- then structuring things based on an analyzed importance may be the way to go.

But of the story you're looking into naturally and dramatically unfolds in order -- like a bank robbery or 9/11 -- then a chronology probably works best.

A lot of it depends on what kind of facts you dig up while reporting. Note in each approach, some facts get greater or lesser emphasis, and some facts get entirely left out. You should think about which approach best uses the most important, relevant, interesting and useful facts. Whichever does is probably the highest and best approach to take.

Let me be clear, though: these are NOT the only two story structure options you have. As you've read in the book and probably noticed in your newspaper readings, there are endless ways to write ledes and detail nut grafs and add quotes and cascade facts throughout a story.

You're first and foremost looking for the best way to tell a story, based on what makes meaning and context and accuracy clear and easy to follow.

These are just two basic ways to do that. Master this, and then start practicing other ways.