With the first of the good leads that I chose, I'm going to go all out with my geekiness. This New York Times piece immediately struck my attention. It successfully captures the shock of the news that the Federal Reserve will continue its policy of quantitative easing for perhaps another month, or even another year. Its lead discusses how the Fed made a stunning reversal in rhetoric and surprised everyone in the financial community with its decision. It then goes onto explain that the Fed doesn't trust Congress to handle the upcoming budget deadline responsibly and fears another economic collapse as a result. This strikes my interest. The author explains the decision by tying it into the larger story at play. This allows me to understand the story in a larger context, and he does it all in the lead. In addition, this lead grabs my attention because, even though the article is about dry economic policy, it still maintains a humorous, playful tone about the story. Not only do I admire its ability to make humor out of dry economic news, but also it holds my attention long enough so that I actually read the article.
Unfortunately, this Reuters piece on the recent tragic shooting that occurred at the Washington Naval Yard fails to match the captivating quality that this story should have. Its lead paragraph is annoyingly wordy. It starts with a very long sentence that packs in too much information to be understandable. If they could either take out a few words, or cut it into multiple sentences, it would be a much easier and smoother read. Perhaps if they did it this way:
"Defense officials said on Wednesday that people who want security clearance to work in the U.S. military do receive background checks. However, these background checks last for a whole decade and are not reviewed unless authorities are presented with new derogatory information."
With this writing, the lead flows much more conversationally. It uses fewer "big words," and it lays out the contrasting nature of defense department background check policy much more directly.
However, I did find a Washington Post article about the House Republicans' new plan to try to defund the Affordable Care Act with a much more compelling lead. It leads by posing the high stakes that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) faces in how he will approach the issue. Then, in revealing what his decision was, the article presents his decision in a broader, symbolic context when it says, "On Wednesday, Boehner announced that he had chosen to stick with his own." This lead grips me into the epic nature of this story, and it motivates me to follow this story further in the coming weeks to see how this showdown will turn out.
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