Assignment #3

A Good Lead: Browse through a variety of print media (online or otherwise) and copy/paste three leads (must be in the first two sentences of story) that stand out to you as especially curious, engaging, humorous, off-the-wall, etc. Write a short paragraph under each lead describing why you chose it. Post as a new Blog entry.

1. “WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush announced in a hastily arranged press conference Monday that he wanted to make the entire country "as presentable as possible" for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, who was scheduled to arrive for a five-day state visit in a matter of hours.”
-The Onion

I thought that this lead was very witty, and introduces the article very well. First of all, I personally think that The Onion is one of the funniest sites online. Their humor is very unique in that they will present fake stories that are too ridiculous or uninteresting to take seriously. The stories, such as this one, are usually ironic in nature. When reading this lead, it is assumed that Bush is trying to clean up America’s policies and governmental structure. The next paragraph, however, reveals that Bush is literally trying to clean up America by picking up trash and clean dirty dishes in homes throughout America. There is a picture of Bush mopping the sidewalk. The Onion is being very ironic with this story. They are basically saying that if Bush were told to make the country presentable for a foreign leader, he would take the advice literally.

2. “By now, everyone knows about the “surge” into Iraq. However, I will spare you from having to read another editorial about this decision. Instead, I want to focus on a growing trend in Iraq, which no one is talking about: the increase in drug use by U.S. soldiers to cope with stress.”
-Mustang Daily

I think this is a very engaging lead for an editorial about the war in Iraq. The writer knows that when people look at this liberally biased article in the paper, they are most likely expecting to read something about how horrible of a decision it was to send more troops into the horrible Iraq war. He pokes fun at this tendency by announcing that his article’s focus will not be what everyone expects it to be. By making this proclamation, the reader becomes curious as to what the article will now be about, and then he reveals that he will be discussing the increase in drug use by US soldiers. Since this issue hasn’t been covered much in the news, it is likely to interest many readers.

3. “BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A man accused of kidnapping two Idaho children, killing one of them, after slaughtering their family has confessed to the killings of three other children a decade ago in Washington state and California, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The prosecutors cited the confessions to the old killings in court papers saying they intended to seek the death penalty against Joseph Edward Duncan III, who was indicted last week on charges involving the two northern Idaho children.”

I chose this article because it stuck out as one of the most violent, disturbing leads I have read. It is a classic hard lead that tries to get out a lot of information to the reader right away. Just by reading this lead, the reader is already aware of how nasty this story is. The words that stand out to me in this article are: killing, slaughtering, death, indicted, children. If news about violence is popular, then this story hit the jackpot. It is interesting that when talking about the murders this man committed, the writer uses the word “killing” when describing one of the children, then uses the word “slaughtering” to describe the family, and then goes back to “killing” when introducing the final three dead children. Using “killing” three times in a row would have probably ruined the flow of the lead. Oh, wait, I think the subject matter already accomplished that task.