Worst lede ever, right? No really, it is the worst lede ever.

This is not a mocking of some poor high school preps reporter figuring out journalism.

This appeared in the Toronto Star. It was written by a columnist.

It's about a sexual assault case.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1316715--dimanno-resilient-witnesses-give-graphic-details-of-doctor-s-alleged-sex-assaults

In case they take it down, BuzzFeed has a screen grab.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-worst-story-intro-you-will-ever-read

Um, what the fuck? What editor looked at this and thought: Rosie nailed it! Killer first sentence!

 

Hmm. Worse than "sometimes breasts get cancer"?

Pretty close, if not. Strong contender.

 

Personally, yes, worse than the one you mentioned. Bad lede, yes, but true. Sometimes breasts do get cancer. The other one?

Wow.

 

I didn't even laugh. First, I was confused about the topic of the story. So it was disorienting and misleading on top of being wildly inappropriate and not funny.

Aside: "Sometimes breasts get cancer" wasn't the first sentence of that story.

 

It's possible that I was more shocked by it simply because DD did tell me what the story was about prior to reading the actual lede.

 

I was just using it as a summary for the whole lede.

But yeah, this really is worse. New champion.

 

Holy smoke.

 

Let's see, a nasty joke of a lede in a horrifying story about sexual assault.

If people don't get fired for that, they at least should be suspended for a week or two. And that really is about the worst lede I've ever seen.

 

I'm sure someone will argue they are getting web hits.

 

Hall of Fame awful.

 

It's Canada, so it doesn't count.

 

And then there's this one.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/1316837--lance-armstrong-as-cunning-as-ever-behind-the-mask-of-apology-dimanno