Name: _______________________________________ Date: ________ Block: ______
Chapter 3: Moving Beyond the Straight News Lead
A. Referring to the "Leads that succeed" spread in your text, try to label each of the leads on this page
according to the following terms:
a. standard summary (delayed ID)
b. standard summary (immediate ID)
c. anecdotal/narrative lead
d. scene-setter lead
Types of Leads
e. blind lead
f. roundup lead
g. direct-address lead
h. startling statement
i. wordplay lead
j. topic lead
k. question lead
l. quote lead
1. _____Flooded streets resembled canals, sailboats sat on the sand and a highway overpass lay in
ruin Friday in the hours after Hurricane Katrina plodded across South Florida. (Asssociated Press)
2. _____A tip for would-be gasoline thieves. When stealing gas in the dark, don't use a lighter to see how
you're doing. Police in Warren County say that's what Glen Germain Junior did when he was siphoning gas
from a dump truck at a business in the Adirondacks last month. (Associated Press)
3. _____A Los Altos scoutmaster has been arrested for allegedly molesting Boy Scouts over a five-year
period beginning in 1987, police said.
Gregory Allen Wagner, 42, was taken into custody Thursday on suspicion of lewd acts on a child
under 14, continuous molestation of a child and distributing harmful matter -- in this case, pornography -- to
a child. (San Francisco Chronicle)
4. _____Linc and Helena Moore may have finally learned the answer to that age-old question: Why
did the chicken cross the road? Because the chicken doesn't know jaywalking is illegal.
Kern County Sheriff's Deputy J. Nicholson does know, however. The deputy issued a ticket
March 26 because one of the couple's chickens allegedly impeded traffic in Johannesburg, a rural
mining community near Ridgecrest, some 220 miles northeast of Los Angeles. (Associated Press)
5. _____More than 400 supporters of Hawaii's Kamehameha Schools rallied in UN Plaza on Saturday to
protest the recent 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling against the schools' Native Hawaiian-preferred
admissions policy. (Asian Week)
6. _____On Sunday, folks came to see some carnage. Sure, some spectators at the 10th annual Lone Peak
Revenge downhill mountain bike race cheered for friends and family. Of course, some were there simply to
marvel at the racers' ability to negotiate the difficult course cut through shale rock slides, down 15-foot
dropoffs and along a narrow pine-lined trail that plummeted more than 1,000 feet in three-quarters of a mile.
But let's be honest, even these people were quietly hoping to see a wipeout on a course that
organizer Andrew Schreiner called "high consequence, with a high chance of breaking body parts or bike
parts." (Billings Gazette)
7. _____Cigarette ads are plastered across the outside of a grocery store on East Ferry Street, just a block
from School 53. One sign for Newport urges passers-by to "Pocket the Pleasure." Another promises
"Pleasure to Go."
At an Amherst Street delicatessen, posters in the window advertise Kool and Virginia Slims, while a
sign on its door touts Newport. Our Lady of Black Rock School is only a block away.
"Cigarettes" is painted in bold red letters on the side of a Hampshire Street grocery store, a block from the
Bilingual Education Center.
8. _____A hundred bucks sure doesn't buy what it used to, but who knew a Benjamin couldn't even get you
half a pair of jeans?
There's a denim explosion going on and it's showing no sign of slowing down. Blue jeans are now
staples in American wardrobes (we each own an average of eight pairs), and they're worn for work, play
and to show off style. (Rocky Mountain News)
9. _____A woman painting a fence in the community of Bethlehem in Harrison County had to call
emergency responders on her cell phone Wednesday after a camel sat on her and pinned her to the
ground. (Associated Press)
10. _____Ten years ago, the new Denver International Airport marched boldly into the future with a
computerized baggage-handling system that immediately became famous for its ability to mangle or
misplace a good portion of everything that wandered into its path.
Now the book is closing on the brilliant machine that couldn't sort straight. Sometime over the next
few weeks, in an anticlimactic moment marked and mourned by just about nobody, the only airline that
ever used any part of the system will pull the plug. An episode bowing equally to John Henry, Rube
Goldberg and Hal from "2001" will end.
People will be fully back in charge. (New York Times)
11. _____Comedian Chris Farley was a motivational speaker, a rabid fan and a topless dancer on
"Saturday Night Live." On Friday, the late comic was the toast of his castmates as they honored him with a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Associated Press)
12. _____The suspect fled on foot -- an artificial foot.
Police say a customer who tested a specially designed prosthetic leg at a Des Moines supplier walked
away without paying the $17,000 bill. (Des Moines Register.com)
13. _____The mayor of one Budapest district wants female City Hall staff to wear miniskirts only if they
have "completely perfect legs" and the skirts are no shorter than 2-3 centimeters (about 1 inch) above
the knee. (Reuters)
B. Take a close look at the collection of weird and wonderful leads in our Morgue. See whether you
can identify each according to the list of leads. Here are the first words of each of the leads:
a. standard summary (delayed ID)
b. standard summary (immediate ID)
c. anecdotal/narrative lead
d. scene-setter lead
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Types of Leads
e. blind lead
f. roundup lead
g. direct-address lead
h. startling statement
i. wordplay lead
j. topic lead
k. question lead
l. quote lead
_____Sometimes Chucky has three-chicken days ...
_____Like a doctor feeling for a pulse ...
_____Much later, after nearly two years of searching for her killer ...
_____In a statement against student shortcuts ..
_____In cold, wet blackness 240 feet below the world ...
_____For two years, live music has boomed ...
_____It's still unclear why he was naked. ..