Writing leads & intros

As a print journalist, I've written many stories (but not many speeches) and I observe that the intros to stories, which we call leads, are a lot like the intros to speeches, especially in that they can be a challenge. Anyway, you can often find a good intro by combing through your notebook — or even the latest draft — for a good anecdote or insight. Here's a for-instance from Wednesday's paper.

The original lead was:

WALLA WALLA -- A community task force met Tuesday to address a draft report released by the state Office of Financial Management last week that outlines several recommendations for how to cut more than 1,000 beds in the Department of Corrections, including the closure of Washington State Penitentiary's historical main institution.

All true, no doubt, but the reporter and I agreed it was pretty dry and didn't convey the feelings at the meeting, which included skepticism about the report's completeness and accuracy as well as a lot of concern about the fact that the "preferred" option in the report would mean about 300 fewer jobs up on the hill. Here's what we came up with:

WALLA WALLA -- Skepticism and concern loomed over a meeting of a community task force working to prevent major job cuts at the Washington State Penitentiary.

The task force met Tuesday to address a draft report released by the state Office of Financial Management last week that outlines several recommendations for how to cut more than 1,000 beds in the Department of Corrections, including the closure of Washington State Penitentiary's historical main institution, which could cost the Valley hundreds of jobs.

As you can see, this includes the skepticism, worry and stakes (big job losses), but doesn't overwhelm readers with all the details, which are farther down in the story.

Inspired writing

Today's example comes from Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON — Hurricane Hank swept through nation’s capital Sunday with gale force regulatory winds and a tidal surge of federal cash, upending two of Washington’s biggest enterprises and permanently changing the landscape of housing finance in America.

Brilliant!

Hit-and-run activism

When I was in college, my friends, enemies and associates and I were often called on to take part in daylong "hunger strikes," overnight stints as homeless people, the list goes predictably on.

I see that a fellow journalist, Jill Silva, took the so-called food stamp challenge, to live for a week on the amount of food the stamps will buy you. In her case, her family of four had $129.50 to spend. Her coverage is worth a read, but begs a few questions from this editor.

What do you really learn by spending just one week in deprivation? More importantly, do food stamp recipients use only food stamps to buy food? If not, how much of their dough do they fold into their weekly allotment? What'll that buy you?

To really get the picture, it would be more appropriate to take the challenge for a month. That'd give despair a better chance to set in. The most interesting part of the talented Ms. Silva's piece is three of her four observations about the emotional and physical effect of doing the challenge:

The challenge felt like a diet. I spent nearly every moment I was not at work thinking about or preparing food.
It was exhausting to shop three times in one week to get the best deals.
I feared I would run out of food.

But it was still a worthy story, even if it was a little too close for my taste to the Global Awareness House holding a Go Hungry for Ghana night.

The most insightful aspect of the coverage, though, was this, the only comment left by someone who read her stories: " You are lucky to have a vehicle to get to the store."

Poppycock from Big Media

So, there are about 101 stylish stories to write, and of course there being way more than 101 writers, they all get written a lot. One of my personal favorites is a riff on the False Piety Piece, which can be laid down anytime there's a new bishop in the archdiocese (The new guy is unimpeachable, but he represents the old hierarchy, which endorses frying and eating small children); a good-hearted sports star signs a fat contract (Joe Blow's only done good things for our city, but Frank Jones turned into a psychotic ax-killer when he got that five-year deal in 1931); etc.

Today's contestant is a USA Today spiel on how "Eco-friendly events can leave large, unfriendly footprints"

I'm sure it is true, of course, but, um: No shit, Sherlock. Have you ever been to a rock show? A balloon festival? A hunters' blind at the end of the season? My front yard? Yours?

Merely the existence of a major crowd-drawer necessarily means waste, harm and general badness. But maybe the eco-friendly events spur people to make wiser choices down the road, ultimately paying for the one-time cost, and maybe paying it many times over.

Would you say no to a washing machine that would pay for itself in two years via energy and water efficiency just because you had to drive to a nearby city to buy it for $200 more than a cheap, inefficient alternative?

I suspect not, but I'm sorry to see my colleagues in print are disinclined to go the extra mile in their own work.

An obituary well worth reading

Whatever you might think of Charlton Heston, you should read Mike Clark's obituary for him at USA Today. Would that we could all write such pieces!

A great quote

One of the many cool things about my job at the newspaper is getting to read zillions of stories I wouldn't necessarily otherwise come across. I think this is a really moving quote, from a story about war photographers gathering at the Newseum:

“When you lose somebody close to you, it doesn’t scab over and heal. A zipper is installed. And anytime you come across the memory, it opens up and all of your sadness falls out.”

- Sherry Potter Walker, whose brother was killed in Laos during the Vietnam War.

Talk like an Egyptian

An interesting tidbit showed up in a wire story about a former police officer suspected of killing his wife. A previous wife, who died under possibly suspicious circumstances, has been exhumed, to which the ex-officer said (to NBC):

"It's a shame her rest in peace has to be disturbed for something like this."

Uh, what?

So, she's just taking a nap in that coffin? Does that mean that if the Cubs win the World Series, she'll be exhumed and he'll be happy?

Weird with a capital W.

More bullshitty baseball writing

USA Today has a sidebar today with the story about Arizona Diamondbacks starter Brandon Webb's 42-inning scoreless streak (which includes three straight shutouts!).

The sidebar is a quick hit on comparisons between Webb and the pitcher he is chasing, Orel Hershiser. Notorious dickhead Tommy Lasorda is quoted as saying he can't bring himself to root for Webb, pretty much because Lasorda bleeds Dodger blue and Hershiser was his guy.

OK, whatever. But Bob Nightengale's sidebar leads with this:

PHOENIX - Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame manager Tom Lasorda admires the man, sees the same marvelous qualities as his own celebrated pitcher but can't bring himself to root for Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks to break one of baseball's most cherished records.

Most cherished? What? You mean right up there with the consecutive games played streak and the all-time home run record?

Hey, it is a cool record, but I think shooting for the all-time, single-season mark in shutouts (16) would be a hell of a lot more impressive. We'll just have to wait until hell freezes over for that one.

A work blog

My employer has decided to take a step forward with its Web site, and add blogs by staff and, presumably, others. I'm obviously a candidate to write one of these blogs, but I'm not sure what to pitch as a topic.

Being a city editor isn't really a dark art, but I'm not sure what kind of window the average blog reader really wants into the sausage factory of news.

Maybe I should blog about something completely different. Ugh. I have no idea.

Deus ex machina

I love to watch movies, even bad ones. Lucky me, because if I objected to watching movies that aren't any good, I would have way fewer choices.

For me, a good ending is the make-or-break element of most movies. I'm OK with nebulous endings, sometimes. But not very often. I'm more OK with those than with the miraculous Problem Solved ending. It seems as though the writers (I think of movies with poor endings as being the work of a committee) said, "Well, we've done everything we needed to do. Got the scene with Nicole Kidman naked. Got the trippy special effect with the electromagnetic pulse. Got the Michael Mann driving scene. OK, let's wrap this up."

Hey, I'm not saying I'd do better, but I'd be OK with fewer, better movies. On the bright side, the prevalance of deus ex machina endings means that a good wikipedia article has been written, or at least one that contains a good for-instance:

(e.g. the rope that binds the hero's hands is luckily chewed off by a rat.)