juanasummers - 29 June 2009 04:06 PM

But then they give me front pagers like this that make the bad assignments worth it: http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/2009/06/22/0622wasp.html

Happy Fourth y’all!

Juana, because I love you. I’m gonna mess with you a little. You were talking about feature ledes being your weakness. For this story, I love the lede. But, I think you could’ve put the news part a lot higher—probably right behind the first sentence.

Susie Bain found her place in the sky when she was 21.

Bain, who lives in North Austin, is one of 300 living WASP members soon to be honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Of course, you could do this.

Susie Bain flew once before she became a World War II pilot.

Bain, now 86, is one of 300 living Women Airforce Service Pilots who will get Congressional Gold Medals [when?].

[then tell her story]

Now me:

I’m pretty free. They treat me like one of the reporters. If something breaks, like the train crash, I’m running. But I found myself last week with a lot of spot and no enterprise. So I started sifting through news and press releases, looking for strands. Then I checked out the common topics: homeless, human service organizations, crime, population, courts.

I did find one common thread that I’m looking into and I just finished a story about what Illinois human service organizations are doing while they wait for lawmakers fight over the state budget—which was due July 1.

My frustration is finding a story out of Chicago or Illinois that the entire nation will care about. Eventually, I decided that the test would be whether my Momma in Houston, my best friend in DC, my friend in Nashville, and I (in Chicago) would all care about it.

cwright - 07 July 2009 09:50 PM

Juana, because I love you. I’m gonna mess with you a little. You were talking about feature ledes being your weakness. For this story, I love the lede. But, I think you could’ve put the news part a lot higher—probably right behind the first sentence.

Susie Bain found her place in the sky when she was 21.

One day she was doing clerical work, the next she signed up to be one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

“It was just absolutely gorgeous just being up there,” Bain, 86, said. “We had what we thought was so much power behind us.”

Bain, who lives in North Austin, is one of 300 living WASP members soon to be honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Of course, you could do this.

Susie Bain flew once before she became a World War II pilot.

Bain, now 86, is one of 300 living Women Airforce Service Pilots who will get Congressional Gold Medals [when?].

[then tell her story]

I know you all know that Christina and I could probably go back and forth forever on this (or anything else).  We like to talk to o much.

But I actually agree with her. This lede got WAY more stretched out than it needed to be. It could have been easily condensed a few inches without losing the feeling behind it.

 Signature 

ma

cwright - 07 July 2009 09:56 PM

the test would be whether my Momma in Houston, my best friend in DC, my friend in Nashville, and I (in Chicago) would all care about it.

actually, this is a hugely great litmus test for any story ... stories that may be local, but whose meaning TRANSCEND geography to go to the heart of all, the momma in Houston and the friend in DC. Nice, CW. (and good to hear from you)

Usually look for what are the most important things about the story, why should people care.

Regards

Scotte

_____
dossier surendettement

happy to keep discussion going if people wanna post.... ma