Joe Cranney reading

I'm in love with the lede written about Richard Lebe. As an editor of a paper who constantly tries to stress the importance of ledes in news writing, it's refreshing to read a lede that so perfectly encapsulates how an engaging beginning of a story will always make the reader want to find out more. I thought that Carey's choice of leading this chapter on ledes with a story about a perfect lede even more so reinforced the idea behind their importance. I wanted to read more after reading the lede written by Eddie Labey.

The breakdown of the five 'W's and the 'H' made me think that those questions are the basic idea behind journalism; telling the stories that people want to hear about in detail. It is a journalist's job to decide what stories people want to hear, and answer those six important questions along the way. When speaking about the events of journalism happening today, Carey mentions the importance of a morning read of The New York Times, which has been dubbed "the agenda setter" of news. The Times sets the standard for what stories people want to hear about, and those stories trickle down to news organizations across the country.

I can relate this to my life. When reading the Times this morning, I read a story about Joe Frazier's former gym in Philadelphia that is now a discount furniture store. I learned that a Temple professor has championed an effort via one of his classes to have the gym pronounced as an historical artifact to protect/restore the building. I will now be writing an article on this for The Temple News. The  Times set the news agenda for the school newspaper.

I didn't enjoy the second article by Ford. When making her point about the reputability of newspapers as opposed to the Internet, she speaks of the two as totally separate entities. She argues that the Internet doesn't have the reputation that the Times has built during its 100+ year history, and cannot play catchup that quickly in that regard.

What she doesn't consider is the point that the Times has its own web site. It's reputation carries over to the Internet. It's remiss to separate newspapers from the Internet because every major newspaper in the country has an online equivalent.

Overall, I thought the Carey chapter was a good read. Ford's article fell short.