Awful Halloween leads

"God said 'The hell with Halloween' on Friday night, so then he had Podunk High
barbecue East Dipstick like the spook-tacular ribs they scare up down at Applebee's."

Make sure you put a good hed on that, OK?

 

The counterargument is that there's no reason to unilaterally and universally ban holiday ledes just because you or a cadre of journalists don't care for them. I could ban all sorts of fun stuff based on my personal or shared taste. But that's not my role. And it shouldn't be yours or anyone else's.

This isn't a basic journalistic tenet. It's a like/dislike issue. And in the absence of any compelling reason beyond taste to ban them, I don't see the issue. More to the point, I'm pretty sure our readers don't give a hot holy crap.

 

"God said 'The hell with Halloween' on Friday Saturday night, so then he had Podunk High
barbecue East Dipstick like the spook-tacular ribs they scare up down at Applebee's."

Nice try, chef3.

 

Stop fucking with my lede!!!!!

 

Halloween came early for Podunk High on Friday night.

 

This is from a sister paper in my company:

On All Hallows’ Eve, Oldham County didn’t pull any tricks to deserve the treat it had searched for all season.

The Colonels defense accounted for three scores and Oldham County got its first win of the season on Senior Night 31-26 over Jeffersontown.

OC (1-9) ended its season with a win to avoid the first winless season in school history.

 

See, that just sucks.

 

On a related note, I've told this story before but it's a good one.
I work at a southern paper, and back in the 60s things were a little less racially sensitive around these parts than they are in our progressive modern times. School A had scored a late touchdown or something to win a big game against School B, in late October.
The headline, for some reason, read: "School A unleashes spooks on School B"
The game was between two black schools.

 

Whoever wrote that was going to employ some form of "tricks" and "treats" no matter what the result.

 

See if the game had gone the other way, then you've got a good lede.

PODUNK - Oldham County got a rock.

 

My policy at my last stop as an SE was carried over from my predecessor: Write a holiday themed, cliche riddled lede and you're fired. Maybe I was kidding, but it kept me from having to edit that stuff.

 

I actually don't think that one's all that terrible. It's more subtle than over the top like a bunch I've seen.