Ledes, one that worked, one that didn't
Ledes, one that works for me appeared on the front page of the NYT. “After years of facing threats far beyond its borders, NATO is now reinvigorating plans to confront a much larger and more aggressive threat from its past: Moscow.” For years, we've been hearing that the Cold War is over, so this lede was a good hook, supported by news of training exercises in a country bordering Russia and reference to Russian actions in the Crimea.
On the other hand, a Wall St. Journal article leads with a statement that is not supported by the remainder of the article. “ Central banks in emerging markets are running down their foreign-currency reserves at the fastest pace since the financial crisis, reducing some countries' capacity to weather potential shocks such as a rate increase in the U.S.” This would be disturbing news except that statement is undermined by the later comment that reserves are actually “hovering around record highs for emerging countries” and a quote from a J.P. Morgan Chase person saying, “We are not that worried about some of the drop in foreign-exchange reserves.”
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteExcellent! My favorite of the two ledes you picked is the first lede, posted on the front page of the NYT. I love how the lede gives me a complete clarity of what the article is about. This way I know exactly what I am going to be reading.
I am not sure if this relates to your article, but I absolutely love nut graf stories. I’m the type of person who needs a lede to catch my attention immediately or I shy away pretty quickly. I also need the entire story to provide extensive details that are cohesive with the thesis as well. This allows me to rut the journalist, because it shows he/she did his research, knows exactly what he/she is talking about and also cared enough to provide me with examples and other reasons to his argument/story.