Archive for February, 2006

Date: February 28th, 2006
Cate: Journalism Practice

Flashlight Lede: The Lede Take 3

To continue our ongoing look at ledes, I say we take a moment to appreciate the “Flashlight Lede.”

Perhaps I’m jumping the gun, since I haven’t yet discussed the “Inverted Pyramid,” the first lede someone should learn, but indulge me as I assume a certain familiarity with the Inverted Pyramid.

A Flashlight Lede begins just like an Inverted Pyramid. The most important information at the top and less important information following.

But after a few graphs, perhaps 3-4 graphs, instead of dishing out information in order of importance, the information is distilled in the chronological order of events that took place.

Hence, the body of the story levels out, so that instead of reaching an information tip (the bottom of the Inverted Pyramid), the information comes in a smooth and chronological flow. A diagram of this model resembles an upward flashlight. It starts like an inverted pyramid but then suddenly smooths out. All information is deemed equally important and so is conveyed to us in the order in which things occurred.

The Flashlight lede is a difficult one to use. But when dealing with some stories it can prove very useful, particularly stories that have a confusing series of events.

For example, if someone is in surgery because of a bullet wound, that should go in the lede. If the bullet wound was the result of a misfire, caused by a loud noise, that happened because a squirrel jumped into the engine of a fire truck on its way to save a cat from a tree, perhaps telling the story in a chronological order will help the reader understand just what happened. Dig?

It’s also easy to imagine how the Flashlight Lede is useful for sports stories.

Date: February 24th, 2006
Cate: Journalism Practice, My Work, New York/San Francisco, Science, Straight Geek

Meta Blog: I Took Some Time for a Love Blog

Hello readers

There is a little something I’ve been holding out on you. For the past two weeks I’ve had a little blog at Seed Magazine. It was a Love Blog and it was the closest thing I’ve done to undercover reporting (I did have one earlier brush covering the LaRuche campaing, but that’s another post). My findings (found halfway down that link), were inconclusive.

For Valentines day I suggested that the Seed staff should do something on the science of love. Another staffer came across Chemistry.com, a dating website that uses science to match you up with your perfect partner. Being the only single male in the office I volunteered (was told) that I would sign up and try and score a date, fall in love, have babies, etc.

Rather than repost the entire blog (creating the title Meta Blog), I’ll just link back to my undercover Love Blog (it reads the best if you start from the beginning). The final post is here.

All fun aside, let’s talk about journalism now. This was a new experience and requires special thought.

more))

Date: February 22nd, 2006
Cate: Journalism Practice, Quote
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Writing the Four Graph Lede

I have noticed that the most visited entry I have is on writing the lede.

So it seems that there are a lot of people out there who want examples of writing good ledes, and rightfully so.

The way my professor explains it: Readers are like prisoners in a jail break who want to run away from your story. You have to grab them quick in order to keep them put.

So how about I explain a trick that was taught to me when I was still green behind the ears by an old editor at Wired. It’s called the “Four Graph Lede.”

I was told that it’s a classic style used by the Wall Street Journal.

Keep in mind this is another hard lede, a way to organize your story so that the most information gets to the reader as quickly as possible aka, the inverted pyramid.

The first graph should be the basic who, what, where, when. What happened.

“A fire destoryed a four story apartment buidling in the South Bronx this afternoon when a tenents’ oven exploded, according to fire officials.”

The second graph should expand on the first, give more detail or paint a picture.

“John doe, who lived on the third floor, was cooking meatloaf around 7:00 p.m. when the oven that had been broken for weeks spewed fire across his floor. The fire quickly spread to a neighboring apartment.”

Then third graph should explain why this story is important to the reader. Let’s face it if you don’t live in the Bronx and there is no hero story (somebody jumping into the flames to save a cat) then you need to find relevance to other readers. Since this entire story is phony, I’ll just create some significance.

“This is the third fire that has occurred in the South Bronx in five weeks and all the buildings have belonged to the same landlord, Jacob Sparano, who is accused of negligence in keeping his buildings up to code.”

The fourth graph should be the “Cosmic Quote.” This is the best quote that you have from your reporting. The best are quotes from people who sum-up either the 2nd graph or third graph in a succinct and poignant sentence.

“I had left several messages to my landlord about that oven, I knew it was broken, but he just ignored me,” said John Doe.

(In this case I was able to create a quote that touched on both the third and fourth paragraph, but we aren’t always that lucky).

Again, writing a good lede is not a science, it’s an art. It takes practice. I tend to use the four graph lede a lot. Some stories lend themselves to a great third “who cares” graph (the third graph), while other stories have better who, what, where, when graphs (this example is a little dull, I know). Sometimes you get that perfect cosmic quote and other times the people you interview don’t even speak English. You just have to learn to work with what you got.

Happy hunting.

Date: February 15th, 2006
Cate: Uncategorized

School and Work

School and work are beginning to add up. It seems that 2-3 days a week turn into 12-14 hour days. The positive thing I can say is that I’m enjoying every minute of it.

This week I went to a city hall meeting on New York’s school budget. I was able to finagle my way into city hall early using my press pass (granted it’s a student press pass, but whose really checking). Going through the metal detectors seemed like an interesting sign of the times.

I had to turn in a story three hours after the event finished. The story turned out to be pretty whack. It was my first government/budget story, not that an excuse is called for.

The next event story I did was a forum on Earth Pledge’s green roof initiative. The environmental aspect of this event appealed to me and was easier to write.

But there is more to write about in the life of me…..

more))

Date: February 15th, 2006
Cate: Journalism Practice, Journalism Theory/Analysis, Links and People, Quote
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The Q and A: Timing is Everything

In class last week we got to meet Deborah Solomon. She handles the public lives column for the New York Times magazine every week. She has definitely mastered the fine art of interviewing.

It was a laid back class and I definitely enjoyed it. It reminded me of the one Q & A session I did with Kalle Lasn of Adbusters.

The most interesting aspect was her process of timing. She has a Friday deadline and usually gets a list of possible subjects to interview. Apparently she tends to schedule the interview on Thursday, allowing her to read up on whomever the lucky person is.

As for me, this would drive me nuts. I hate waiting to the last minute. But somehow she stays cool on Fridays when she edits down 7,000 or so words down to 600 and fact checks the whole thing.

My hat is off.

I was also happy to see how personable she was, but I guess that is an important tool to have when your job is interviewing a different person every week.