Sleep: What's New Is The News

News isn't that something happened or took place. It's what, exactly, happened or took place.

Let's consider this pretend lede from a football game story:

MSU played Notre Dame in a football game Saturday.

That lede doesn't work, right? That's because the news isn't that a game was played; it's what happened at the game, something like MSU beat Notre Dame 84-0 on Saturday.

In the same way, this not-pretend lede doesn't work, either:

  One of the nation’s leaders in the study of sleep, Diana Gant, was interviewed on her expertise of sleep shortage within the average person. 

The news isn't that Gant talked about expertise; the news is what her expertise found! So a better lede would have said something like:

The average person needs nine to 10 hours of sleep per night, but actually gets only about seven hours, one of the nation's leaders in the study of sleep said.

What you're missing in each case is ultimate outcome and end result: who won or lost the game, and by how much in the former; how people should sleep versus how they actually sleep in the latter.

So if you're covering a city council meeting, for example, the news isn't that there was a meeting, or even that they discussed a specific issue at the meeting; it's what action took place regarding the issue at the meeting.

Let's be sure we're hooking our stories and our basic ledes on what happened, and not just that something happened.