I like narrative leads -- but not this one

This give and take is very cool.

I'm very much like my thread title. I agree with all of those who say that narrative writing is what's going to set newspapers apart in the future; no problem there. And I also understand the argument that this had been all over the news, so a second-day approach was appropriate -- to some extent.

(I really like the little exchange over "religious service got under(way)" vs. "Mass began.")

But I still can't get past the fact that in the first few paragraphs, I don't know eight people died.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the discussion to me is whether it's OK for the writer to let the desk "handle the facts" for them in the headline and decks. I'm all for change -- how can you not be at this point? -- but I'm not sure I'm willing to concede that it's OK for a writer to assume that if he writes without regard to a critical fact early on -- eight dead -- that, "Oh, well, the desk can handle that for me."

"The way we were taught" isn't always working as a reason to do things these days, but something as basic as getting something that important into a story high up still seems to be a worthwhile "given."

 

This story is a nice example of why we're struggling to regain, redefine our niche.
Vets such as Frank like it one way. Clearly the industry is moving in another.

We can spend the next decade debating which is better; all that matters is which one customers prefer. We would be better served accepting this: We're not a "news" paper any more, not in the traditional sense we grew up with -- racing our dad to the driveway to grab the sports section to find out who won. I would bet fewer than 10 percent of LAT readers woke up to that headline and said: "Holy crap! When did this happen? Honey, did you hear about this??"

We're a daily news magazine. We don't have to like it, and there are many days I don't. But we need to accept the fact we must reinvent ourself to save ourself.

 

The hed on that story: "Gunman Kills 32 at Virginia Tech in Deadliest Shooting in U.S. History"

The first graf: "An outburst of gunfire at a Virginia Tech dormitory, followed two hours later by a ruthless string of attacks at a classroom building, killed 32 students, faculty and staff and left about 30 others injured yesterday in the deadliest shooting rampage in the nation's history."

Far be it from me to argue with the Pulitzer committee, but that's giving the reader the same information twice -- information that's been all over every news outlet for 24 hours. That's not the way to go, IMO. Not anymore.

 

That specific form of reinvention -- daily magazine -- has already been tried, though. It was the supposed solution to newspapers' problems competing against TV, radio and other newspapers that had more resources. That experiment has been 40 years of fail. I remember reading about this "magapaper" that was going to change the industry -- that was in a high school journalism class in 1975 and the textbook was first published in 1961. This notion that people will be eager to read a daily product chock full of opinion, analysis and long-form storytelling appeals to journalists' egos and their unsupported belief that writing can save the business. But history says the opposite and says so quite clearly.

There is plenty of news that doesn't become known until the newspaper publishes it -- simply because the wires, TV, radio and small local Web sites lack the resources to cover more than the surface.

Do yourselves a favor and read Peter Benjaminson's Death In The Afternoon, which chronicles the demise of big-city PM papers in the 1970s and early 1980s. The parallels are astonishing -- untimely delivery and an incorrect perception that featurizing can compensate for it. Going soft has been lemmings off a cliff. Unfortunately, a lot of editors have failed to study history and are doomed to repeat it.

As I've said many times here, newspapers have not stayed static. And it has now reached the point of recycling strategies that already failed a decade or four earlier. The one thing that I don't see much is newspapers asking themselves whether some of the supposed solutions have quickened the decline rather than slowed it. I believe history shows that ceding hard news to other media is the worst possible tactic. Those who argue the opposite never seem able to produce an example of this actually working.

 

Nobody is endorsing ceding the news.
LAT surely didn't. It posted online immediately and updated frequently.

We're doing much more than we used to, not less. We're just doing it quicker. In 24 hours, you got the news, more news online and finally details in the paper many of us still are talking about. Five, 10, 40 years ago, it would have taken 2 days for all of that to play out.

We're not competing against TV stations that devote 10 superficial seconds to a subject. We're competing against sites that can deliver the essential news and often more well before you get your morning paper.

That's the difference between now and decades ago.

TV could never challenge print. Never. News sites can. You match what they do online, and you better be better than that in print. Otherwise, why the hell would anyone need/want to read you?

 

Not to push my own post, but I really would like to see more about what people think about the notion that if key information is present in the headline and any ensuing display type, it's not necessary that the writer also handle it high up in the story.

I'm simply not buying that.

Extreme example:

Dolphins defeat Jets 27-24 to clinch AFC East

OK, it's all there (despite being a lousy headline). So are we really saying, as some seemed to above, that because it's there, the score, the fact that it clinches a division title -- none of that -- has to be, say, before the jump?

 

If the hed(s) give the pertinent information, readers know exactly what happened right off the bat.

PSYCHO IN SANTA SUIT SLAUGHTERS 9

There's the lede right there. So if the writer goes narrative now, I have no issue with him setting the scene for 2-3 grafs before returning to the nut information.

 

OK, slight sidebar issue here. Christmas Day, sometime early afternoon, I read about this story on the NYTimes website. It was positioned slightly down the page, but still displayed prominently. Staff written story, with phoner quotes from the cops. Basically, the story being used in this comparison.

So I figure, OK, I'll go to the LATimes and get the full blowout package.

Ooops.

The LAT had, at that point, an AP story on their website, shuttled off to the side of the page. It wasn't anywhere near their lead position on the page.

I don't know what it means. Maybe they had a skeleton crew on for the holidays, and whoever was there didn't realize that a mass murder on Christmas Eve perpetrated by a man in a Santa suit, might be, well, a ... good story?

Don't know. All I know is that's what I saw online on Christmas, and given the discussion, I thought I'd mention it.

 

Question of tone. You present a story straightforwardly, it tells the reader this is a factual story, this is news. You go about it via a side door, you are saying this is something else, this is interpretive, this is not news. And if you're in a hurry -- and they keep telling us they are -- you skip something that is not direct. Maybe you tell yourself you'll get to it later. And maybe you do. Or maybe you don't. If the story's approach lacks urgency, so do you. Regardless of what the headline says.

Another factor is if you want to have your stuff show up on search engines, being cryptic probably doesn't help.

 

I've restrained from participating in this thread for reasons few of you know. But, it's a wonderful, worthwhile discussion. This piece, in a nutshell, is a change in attitude and delivery we have been told to stress to our writers.
This particular case, the story was close to 20-hours old when the newscycle for the paper ended. Much older by the time the reader of the newspaper saw it the next morning.
By one account, nine different versions of the story were posted throughout the day. Not to mention the continuous tweaking and updating. All of which were straight presentations of the facts.
Now, here is where two cultures clash. Where two thoughts hit that fork in the road. Do we as newspapers regurgitate what we've reported for close to a day, or do we deliver -- or try to -- perspective in a different product.
Now, I think, it's our mission to deliver the latter.

 

Usually Mohamed Atta would have enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of camel milk and couscous while catching the latest news on Al-Jazeera. But on this sunny Tuesday he was in Portland, Maine, and camels are in short supply there.

Anyway, he was in a hurry. The boxcutters, he reminded himself. Don't forget the boxcutters.

Atta hurried to the small airport to catch a short flight to Boston, and then a connecting flight bound for Newark, N.J. Along the way, he drove past a bagel shop and a Waffle House. A drive-up window at McDonald's loomed in the distance. There would be no time for that.

(Seven similar paragraphs later ...)

 

Agreed. And I've beaten this horse for a while, so just to emphasize one last time, and perhaps it's as simple as one fact: The narrative, second-day lead wasn't a big problem for me. Just would have liked to see the number of deaths -- an extraordinary figure -- a bit higher.