Alternative Leads

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Alternative Leads

• Chapter 7
• Reporting for the Media

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Writing Leads

• Be specific
• Avoid the obvious
• Emphasize the storys unusual or unexpected
  developments
• Emphasize the most interesting

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• Emphasize impact
• Be concise
• Begin with the main point
• Remember the readers write clearly, emphasize
  details
• Read your lead aloud to yourself several times

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The Elusive Alternative Lead

• The art of writing, like the art of love, runs
  all the way from a kind of routine, hard to
  distinguish from piling bricks, to a kind of
  frenzy, closely related to delirium tremens.
  H.L. Mencken

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• Keep these questions in mind at all times
• What's the news?
• What's the point?
• Keep focusing and refocusing on these points and
  plotting out the story, asking what details
  answer those questions.
• Read the lead out loud to yourself.
• Does the lead make you want to read the story?
• Try to visualize, even if you're on the phone
  interviewing someone, so you'll be sure to
  collect colorful details.

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• A unusual alternative lead does not require an
  unusual story.
• If your story is clear, concise, accurate and
  interesting, your editor will be more likely to
  tolerate an alternative lead.
• Cute leads wont bolster a badly written story.

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• Marquette -- On a stark white sheet, two angelic
  but grubby children lie side by side. Dawn
  Belcher, 9, is clad in tiger-striped pajamas. Her
  hair flows over her shoulders. Timothy Belcher,
  5, wears footie PJs, his brown hair cropped in a
  crew cut. It is as if the camera caught the
  sleepy-looking pair, eyes half-shut, after they
  made a mess of mud pies. That is not how this
  photograph came to be, though. The soot around
  their nostrils, the glazed look in their eyes,
  the tag tied to Dawn's arm, and the burns all
  make a plain point They are dead.

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• Sixty-five tiny rarities, packed in unscented
  toilet paper, syringe cases and Styrofoam, left
  Detroit to wing across the Atlantic on Wednesday.
  After a week-long stay in London, the endangered
  Partula taeniata snails will try to forge new
  lives in their old world. (They are native to
  Polynesia)
• These could have been boring, straight-lead
  stories we all know how to write, but the writer
  worked to come up with something better. They
  were written by Louise Taylor of the Detroit Free
  Press.
• My note

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• Critics call alternative leads Jell-O
  Journalism.
• They say soft leads are inappropriate for news
  stories.
• Buried or Delayed leads must be accompanied by a
  nut graph.
• It clarifies any questions the alternative lead
  may leave.

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• Multiparagraph leads MUST flow. Transition is of
  utmost importance.
• Although not a unit, as a paragraph, the
  multiparagraph lead has to be a unit in thought,
  symbolism and vocabulary. No mixed metaphors
• Quotation leads are criticized as ineffective,
  but sometimes they work.

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• Question leads are least effective.
• If effective, at all, question leads must be
  brief, simple, specific and provocative.
• Question leads beg the question.
• If you pose a question in the lead, you must
  answer. Therefore, the answer is going to biased
  and not objective.

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• Suspenseful leads are effective, but require
  imagination.
• It is an intimate vocabulary charade with your
  reader.
• Its like guess what Im writing about, and
  requires readers with wonder.
• Putting a puzzle together must be interesting,
  and/or fun.

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• Descriptive leads are my favorite.
• A descriptive lead has potential for most
  humanity in narrative.
• It concentrates on Who, What and How.
• This is where senses get involved.
• Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.
• Its key in showing me the story.

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• Shockers are usually associated with
  tabloid-style journalism.
• Thats not always true.
• Serious journalists especially those who do
  in-depth investigation often use shocking leads
  to intensify reader concern.
• These are leads with a twist.

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• Direct-address leads occur when a reporter speaks
  directly to his audience.
• Vocabulary allows writers to open narrative in
  unusual ways.
• But, too many words muddle your writing and labor
  your readers. Too many words can be a burden.

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• One bad word choice can cost a subscription.
• A Poynter Institute study showed that 75 percent
  of readers look at the photos 55 percent read
  the headlines and only 25 percent read the story.
• An ASNE study showed 73 percent of newspaper
  readers felt time pressured.

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• An American Press Institute study shows 90
  percent of readers easily understand sentences
  averaging 16 to 19 words.
• The same 90 percent cannot understand sentences
  averaging 30 words or more.
• The higher the word count, the more difficult it
  is for the reader. (Don Fry, writing consultant)

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• After youve checked the names and facts, trim
  the excess
• Watch the ofs
• Be careful with quotes
• Use brief background information
• Watch for excessive there, its, it is and to
  be
• Avoid the passive voice
• Know your weaknesses
• Keep it simple

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• Paula LaRocque says
• Trim vague qualifiers like very, really, truly,
  extremely, somewhat, quite and rather
• Avoid excessive use of a, an, the, this, these,
  those and that
• Brevity is a companion of good writing, not its
  cause.
• Compression means being able to say everything
  while still making our work as solid, concrete
  and terse as possible.