On second thought, don't
What could be more unimaginably clueless than a lede like this?
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Country roads, take me home.
Or better yet, Indianapolis.
I know! A third graf like this!
It's almost heaven, West Virginia. Da'Sean Butler and the Mountaineers are off to the Final Four for the first time since 1959.
I see where you're going, but ... no. Indulge my literalism. Work young Mr. Butler into some clause that doesn't make him eligible for Social Security.
Joe Mazzulla scored a career-high 17 points in his first start this season and West Virginia handled a cold-shooting Kentucky team stocked with future NBA players almost from the opening tip for a 73-66 victory in the East Regional final Saturday night.
That's the sort of sentence that makes you laugh out loud at those claims about the dazzling creativity of sports writing. I'd say it's exceptional, but it isn't. It happens every day.
So: Spike the lede. Terminate the second graf's command with extreme prejudice. 86 the double-dip on the cliche at the third graf. Kill the first three words of the following sentence, and you have the fairly lame beginnings of a lede. Sounds like a good time to get to work.
Now back to your regularly scheduled triumphant march through the NIT.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Country roads, take me home.
Or better yet, Indianapolis.
I know! A third graf like this!
It's almost heaven, West Virginia. Da'Sean Butler and the Mountaineers are off to the Final Four for the first time since 1959.
I see where you're going, but ... no. Indulge my literalism. Work young Mr. Butler into some clause that doesn't make him eligible for Social Security.
Joe Mazzulla scored a career-high 17 points in his first start this season and West Virginia handled a cold-shooting Kentucky team stocked with future NBA players almost from the opening tip for a 73-66 victory in the East Regional final Saturday night.
That's the sort of sentence that makes you laugh out loud at those claims about the dazzling creativity of sports writing. I'd say it's exceptional, but it isn't. It happens every day.
So: Spike the lede. Terminate the second graf's command with extreme prejudice. 86 the double-dip on the cliche at the third graf. Kill the first three words of the following sentence, and you have the fairly lame beginnings of a lede. Sounds like a good time to get to work.
Now back to your regularly scheduled triumphant march through the NIT.
posted by fev at 11:37 PM
2 Comments:
As we say, trim from the top.
The only thing that could make a story like this worse would be if it were factually inaccurate ... oh, just like this sentence in the first-lede writethru: "It's been a turbulent time for Huggins since his previous Final Four appearance. He was forced out at Cincinnati, had a heart attack in 2002 and spent a year coaching Kansas State before he found the country roads back to Huntington in 2007." West Virginia (the school) is in Morgantown, not Huntington.
The only thing that awful story lacked was a throwaway reference to Kentucky celeb-fan Ashley Judd.
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