First Ledes: Some Strong Examples

With basic summary ledes, we want to be able to get to the central point, end result and ultimate outcome of the story right away, without the need to read anything else to know exactly how things ended up, and/or what made a story most relevant, interesting and useful.

 

I think the following ledes meet that standard. Take a look, and compare them to your ledes:

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control revealed 43 percent of American marriages result in a divorce within the first 15 years of marriage.

... and ... 

East Lansing public school officials announced a new program that will offer housing mortgages with below-market interest rates for teachers and administrators to combat low salary wages.

... and ... 

With new one-story stations coming in the future, the Kalamazoo Fire Department will no longer continue its 100-year-plus tradition of sliding down a pole to reach the fire engines.

... and ...  

Detroit officials announced Monday two more Kennedy High School students have picked up tuberculosis from a classmate, testing positive for the deadly disease during last week’s 170-student inspection.

Please notice how they are written in a simple, easy-to-understand style; how they get to the point in a succinct manner; and how they cite the most telling statistics and/or facts.

I'm happy to say that in this exercise, many of our ledes were similar to these. Really good job the first time around, folks.

First Ledes: Use The Right Words!

Let's look at this lede:

      The Centers of Disease Control concluded from a study that the length of an average American wedding is dependent on factors other than just people growing apart after time.

We have a problems here: we listed the name of the organization as the Center of Disease Control. That is not the name; according to what we were given, it is the Centers (not Center) for (not of) Disease Control.

In journalism, we must get names precisely correct. No wiggle room. As noted in the syllabus:

Fact errors: Inaccurate information, misspelling a proper name, a misquotation or an error that changes the meaning of a story automatically drops a grade to a maximum of 1.0 (e.g., President “Barack Obamma” or “Department of Transport”).      

So, this is the first "fatal" of the semester. I'm not pointing this out to be a jerk; rather, it's to remind each and every one of us that journalism isn't about writing; it's about getting it right. That means we need to use names and facts precisely. That means we have to be sure to double-check our work to ensure that we used the right terms and facts, the right way.

In this assignment, each component was its own grade. So, instead of dropping the overall grade to a 1.0, it dropped it to a 3.0, with three components getting full credit. 

It wasn't our only fatal. In another exercise, we reported the fire department's pole-sliding was a centuries-old tradition (plural), when in fact it was a century-old tradition (singular). Yes, it changes the meaning from one hundred years to hundreds of years, so it is a fatal.

In an earlier blog post, we talked about using precise language, and using language correctly. This is an example of why; so we can convey the correct meaning, exactly as we intended and without risk of confusion.

A bigger problem we had was that one of us didn't do this assignment. The fastest way to struggle in this class is to miss assignments, since the final grade is based on a compilation of scores. And a low score is better than no score at all.

First Ledes: The News Is What Happened

I'm afraid this lede falls short in that regard:

On Friday, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control released their results on American marriage based on a study of 50,000 women, providing possible explanation for the high divorce rate in the U.S.

The lede says what took place -- a study -- but it fails to say what the study found. The news isn't that results were released; it's what the results were. The news isn't that the results provide a possible explanation; it's what the explanation is.

With this lede, the reader has no idea what makes this newsworthy. In many ways, this lede is like a football game lede that says ...

On Friday, the MSU football ream played Notre Dame.

... which, obviously, we'd never do. The news is who won the game, by how much, ect. A better lede would incorporate those elements, like this:

On Friday, MSU's football team beat Notre Dame, 152-0.

So, we need to do the same thing with our research lede: incorporate the end results. So, instead of saying they released their results on American marriage based on a study of 50,000 women, let's say what some key results of that study were, like, people who are younger, less religious and live together before marriage are at greater risk for divorce.

Let's swap out those phrases, and we have a lede like this:

On Friday, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control said people who are younger, less religious and live together before marriage are at greater risk for divorce, providing possible explanation for the high divorce rate in the U.S.

Now, we have a solid idea of exactly what the study found; not just that there was a study that found something.

Let's make sure our ledes get to that end result and ultimate outcome, just like a sports story would. 

First Ledes: Get To The News!

The news isn't that something took place; it's what ended up happening. It's about ultimate outcome. This lede takes some time to get to the latter:

The Centers for Disease Control conducted elaborate studies on American marriages, with staggering truths about divorce rates revealed.  The CDC concludes women’s wealth, religion, and education play drastic roles in the break-up rate.

What holds us up here is the mention of staggering truths. It tells us that there are truths, but it doesn't say what those truths are. It's kind of a waste of time and space. In English composition we prize wordiness, but in journalistic writing we strive for the exact opposite. We went to be precise and efficient in word use.

What I recommend is getting straight to the point by cutting out that middle section of, conducted elaborate studies on American marriages, with staggering truths about divorce rates revealed. The CDC ... that hints at -- but fails to specify -- the findings.

Then I'd merge what was left, leaving us with this:

The Centers for Disease Control concludes women’s wealth, religion, and education play drastic roles in the marriage break-up rate.

Now, we're emphasizing  the end result and ultimate outcome, without the clutter that doesn't really say much.

First Ledes: Two Sentences Are NOT Better Than One

In writing for journalism, we need to look for spots where we can reduce wordiness and be efficient in word use.

I see an opportunity with this lede:

Teachers in East Lansing will be provided with financial relief, thanks to a new program. The program will offer mortgages with below-market interest rates to teachers and administrators in public schools. 

First, we should always be on the lookout for opportunities to reduce a two-sentence lede to just one sentence. A good indication of whether you can possibly do that is if you refer to something twice.

Like, when you refer to the "program" at the end of the first sentence, and the start of the second sentence. Why not merge those references -- and sentences -- like this:

Teachers in East Lansing will be provided with financial relief, thanks to a new program offering mortgages with below-market interest rates to teachers and administrators in public schools.

See what I did there? We've cut out excessive wordiness and redundancy.

First Ledes: Don't Forget Your Articles!

I don't mean stories. A mean a grammatical article, like a, an, the.

Like here: Tuberculosis on the rise at Detroit’s Kennedy High School.

It should be, Tuberculosis is on the rise at Detroit’s Kennedy High School.

When it comes to writing for news, what messes us up regarding articles are newspaper headlines, which usually drop articles in favor of brevity. While that is true of headlines, that is not true of the actual stories under the headlines. Articles need articles.

If you're not sure if you have articles, read your story out loud and ask yourself if it sounds like you've formed complete sentences (e.g., do you sound like a robot talking -- must bowl now -- or a human being -- I must bowl now?). If not, it's usually because you're missing an article.

First Ledes: Writing With (AP) Style

In this assignment you weren't asked to write conforming to AP style. And on this one I won't grade you on that basis. Still, we're going to use this opportunity to start picking up some of the more common AP style points.

Like with how to refer to money. Is it $10,000 with the dollar symbol ahead of the amount or 10,000 dollars, with dollars spelled out?

It's the former This is what I pulled from the AP Stylebook, under dollars: Use figures and the $ sign in all except casual references or amounts without a figure.

Number usage has its own specific style under AP rules. Here's the most basic AP guideline, in your style book under numerals: In general "Spell out whole numbers below 10, use figures for 10 and above."

So two should be two, not 2. And 10 should be 10, not ten.

So then, is this correct to start a sentence, under AP Style rules, by spelling out a number like this?

Twenty-two . . .

Actually, that IS correct number use. This is under the numerals heading:

Spell out a numeral at the beginning of a sentence.

Also, Is it 100 year-old with a hyphen between year and old or 100-year-old with hyphens between everything or 100 year old with no hyphens at all? AP Style under ages: Use hyphens for ages expressed as adjectives before a noun or as substitutes for a noun.

So it's 100-year-old, with hyphens between the 100 and year, and between the year and old.

Also, is it Kalamazoo's Fire Chief, with the title in caps, or Kalamazoo's fire chief, with the title lower-cased?

In the absence of a name with the title, it's the latter.How do I know that? AP Style, under titles:

In general confine capitalization to formal titles used directly before an individual's name ... capitalize formal titles when they are used immediately before one or more names.

So, if you just say Kalamazoo fire chief, it's lower-case. If you say Kalamazoo Fire Chief Tom Izzo, it's upper-case.

There are a ton of exceptions under titles, so that's a section you probably want to check frequently.


Another AP no-no is using the percentage symbol of % instead of spelling out the word percent. The correct use is to spell out the symbol, like this: 35 percent. Please review the AP listing under percent.

Moving on, many of you referred to the Centers for Disease Control as just that in your lede. A few of you called used its acronym of CDC in a first reference. An acronym is a word formed from the first letter or letters of a series of words, such as MSU (which is the acronym for Michigan State University).

And using an acronym on first reference is probably a no-no.

In most first cases, it's best to spell out the full title of an entity. If an acronym is especially well-known -- like NASA or FBI or USA -- then generally it is acceptable in a first reference. I'm not sure CDC makes that cut, FYI.

Now, in subsequent references you have a few options. One is to refer to the center in the generic, like I just did: as the center, lower-cased. A second option would be to consider using the acronym, after establishing what the acronym is in the first reference.

This is where I'm going to refer you back to AP Style. Please carefully read and review the listing for abbreviations and acronyms.

Speaking of the CDC, was it Center for Disease Control or Centers for Disease Control? Did anybody check AP style under Centers for Disease Control? What does it say?

The idea behind AP style is not simply to drive you crazy; it's also to create a consistent way of referring to terms and phrases and stats and such throughout not just a story, but throughout all stories offered by a single media organization. Consistency is the key point I'd like you to learn here, and we'll use AP style as the baseline.

I know the AP Stylebook is a lot to digest. But as this class goes on, I expect that you improve by checking your word use against the AP Stylebook, and by remembering AP Style rules as we go along.

What I'm saying is, I don't expect you to make the same mistake twice. I expect you to learn from your mistakes and apply the lessons going forward.

When it comes to types of language you're likely to frequently -- like numbers and money references -- you may want to make a cheat sheet that you can quickly refer to. Just an idea, folks.