Picking your battles

[Anna Holland]

This is the lede of a story I edited tonight:

Every one has had a day where 24 hours just doesn’t seem like enough time. So you rush. First work runs late. Then you realize you are out of dog food and have to run by the store before going home.

For a 42-year-old woman, that busy day was near an end when she stopped to check the mail in her apartment complex. There, a man forced her into the backseat of her car and ordered her to say nothing. Then he raped her.

Am I the only one who has an issue with it?

When I asked the editor if we could cut the first graf -- I think it trivializes what happened to this woman -- I got shot down.

[Wayne Countryman]

That's a battle worth fighting.

[Jim Thomsen]

That's damned close to a firing offense for both writer and editor, in my book.

A writer at a metro who hasn't learned a) what the news is; b) how to present it; and c) how to make writing tone and subject tone agree? I don't know that remedial education for someone like that would do much good.

[Paul Ybarrondo]

Wow. That's just pathetically bad.

[Powderhorn]

Nothing quite like a feature lede on a rape.

[Anna Holland]

There's a bit more to it -- the attack occured in December, so it's old, and police are saying that the case could be tied to a serial rapist.

When I raised my concern, this is the response I got from the editor:

It conveys how an ordinary day can become a major trauma and this is why we want people to be aware of serial rapist.

I still think it's nonsense.

When I went to the slot, she agreed with the Metro editor.

[Jim Thomsen]

I can't find it, but some veteran editor wrote a column for The New Yorker (I think) a decade or so in which he penned a brilliant parody of a feature lede.

The first several grafs were about an old weatherbeaten man sitting on a porch in Texas in 1963, watching vehicles go by. Then, about five or six grafs in, he noticed that another car was bearing the body of the president, "and he was dead."

[Chris Wienandt]

It does trivialize what happened. And it needlessly shifts the focus away from where it should be.

[Chris Wienandt]

Sorry ... the more I read this, the more it floors me.

"Had a [bad] day. ... Then he raped her."

I'm speechless.

[Jim Thomsen]

May we see a link to the full story, please?

[Anna Holland]

Here it is.

(Edited once to add link.)

[Paul Ybarrondo]

Deleted. Now that we have a link to the story my feeble comment is moot.

[Jim Thomsen]

It reads like someone swallowed the Poynter narrative-writing-workshop Kool-Aid. And went back for seconds.

[dfisher]

This is one of those cases where it seems to me the lede needs to be the nut graf. Not an inverted pyramid thing, but a case where you really try to telegraph to the reader what you are trying to accomplish with the story. Having the rationale from the editor helps:

Feeble example follows (it's Sunday, and I'm not in editing mode):

PLANO – In just one moment, an otherwise ordinary day can change into a major trauma. And the story of how that happened to a 42-year-old Plano woman now has police concerned it may be the sixth attack by a serial rapist.

We've all had the kind of day she was having: Twenty-four hours just doesn't seem like enough time. You rush. Work runs late. Then you have to run by the store for dog food before going home.

Her busy day was near an end when she stopped to check the mail in her apartment complex. There, a man forced her into the back seat of her car and ordered her to say nothing. Then he raped her.

----
Update: As I said, this was first feeble attempt at a middle ground. As noted by Leslie, the dog food continues to bother me, too. If nothing else, it just seems thrown in there, out of place. Again, keeping in mind that all I'm suggesting is a quick detente between the copy and assigning desks, I might refashion those last two grafs:

It had been one of those days we all seem to have: Twenty-four hours just doesn't seem like enough time. She was rushed. Work ran late.

She finally had gotten to her apartment complex and stopped to check the mail when a man forced her into the back seat of her car and ordered her to say nothing. Then he raped her.

Yeah, in a perfect world I'd look to rewrite the whole thing (some other parts of the story have problems, too). But it's not a perfect world, and the assigning desk appears hell bent on its "take," so what can we do in a pinch to present to that desk that acknowledges where it is coming from but minimizes the damage?

[Jim Thomsen]

That's not bad, Doug. Now that I've read the whole story, I still feel the tone of the lede is painfully at odds with the tenor of the story — and the subject matter.

[Leslie]

I haven't read the story, but elevating dog food above rape is just wrong.

[Wayne Countryman]

Doug is on the right track with his suggested rewrites and the idea of having an alternative to propose when voicing an objection.

Reading the story makes it clear what the reporter was trying to do. It's not a first-, second- or third-day story. The story is about more than this one rape. The problem isn't that a narrative approach was tried; the problem is in how it was carried out.

A narrative approach often is the most effective. Even when it's appropriate to use, though, it takes more time and talent to write and edit. It would be a shame if newspapers, which should try to become more interesting, don't have the staffing necessary to do it right.

[Deadline Dame]

I got in big trouble once for changing a lead that was similar, because the reporters are instructed to write them.

Was that a Gannett paper? If so, that explains it.

Here's the deal on hy that lead is not only okay, but encouraged by the top dogs (though I TOTALLY DISAGREE): Breaking news on the Web, next day print a softer lead that's supposed to be a sort of folo. That is exactly what our reporters are told to do. Stories are immediately put on the Web as "breaking," no matter how trivial they are.

I hate it, because the people reading news on the Web are NOT going to the paper the next day for a folo and the people who read the paper aren't usually reading the Web every 5 seconds, so they see such a lead and, in my opinion, find it awful.

I don't care if it's been put on the Web, such a story should never have a soft lead.

[dfisher]

Here's the deal on hy that lead is not only okay, but encouraged by the top dogs (though I TOTALLY DISAGREE): Breaking news on the Web, next day print a softer lead that's supposed to be a sort of folo. That is exactly what our reporters are told to do. Stories are immediately put on the Web as "breaking," no matter how trivial they are.

I hate it, because the people reading news on the Web are NOT going to the paper the next day for a folo and the people who read the paper aren't usually reading the Web every 5 seconds, so they see such a lead and, in my opinion, find it awful.

I don't care if it's been put on the Web, such a story should never have a soft lead.

In the wire service, we used to call them PMs ledes. It was an art to write them, but I think we were pretty good at putting a softer and often a look-forward lede on a story without doing this. There's a lot of the old wire service artistry that's being resurrected with the Web. It would be nice to figure out how to translate some of it to the modern newsroom (other than having the night desk supe throw your story back to you three or four times and then rewrite the danged lede himself till you learned how :) ).

I think your comment about readers on the Web vs. print is worth thinking about. I think there's probably a lot of truth there.

[Powderhorn]

The problem isn't that a narrative approach was tried; the problem is in how it was carried out.

How often is it that we run into "great in concept, poor in execution" issues on a nightly basis? Some writers and assigning eds are amenable to input, while others hold the concept on a pedestal. In the latter case, all I can do is be glad my byline isn't sitting atop the offense.

[creekindian]

I just can't take this anymore. It's cosmically ridiculous to even care what type of day she was having before she got raped. You're saying if she had been having a "great" day, the rape would have been less traumatic?
The assigning editor should have told this cub reporter to start all over with a different angle.

[dfisher]

Yes, the assigning editor should have.

But the assigning editor wouldn't.

We can rail about it all day, but in the end we have to try to mitigate as best we can.

It does no good to wish for the unlikely or impossible.

However, this does open up a new line of thought -- if feelings are that strong, what responsibility does the copy editor have the next day, out of the heat of battle, to seek the opinion of higher-ups? Is it a battle worth fighting, because it well could be bloody.

Instead of generalities, let's keep in the context of this story. Would you have done so? Why or why not?

Me, yes, I would have asked for a review. I think the lede is that bad.

[editer]

Same here, Doug.

[Jim Thomsen]

Same here. And I've done it before.

And, in an extreme case where the red flags are too big to ignore, I've advocated spiking/holding the story and called editors at home seeking concurrence.

Last night, for instance, we received a story from a first-time freelancer — via his assigning editor, who edited it at home and passed it on to me — that was just awful. No quotes, little local relevance, passages that read as if they'd been copied from a promotional brochure. I decided to spike it and justify it later, and sent out e-mails to that effect.

When I get back to work on Wednesday, I'll either be in trouble for taking that initiative and using my judgment over that of a management-level editor. Or I won't. Either way, I slept OK last night.