worst leads you have seen

Didn't realize Tom Wolfe was writing prep gamers these days.

 

[blue] Damn. Who would have thought a football game begins with a kickoff. I never knew![/blue]

 

1) Any lede that references Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, yada yada yada ...

2) "Poor (insert name of conference cellar dweller)." Unfortunately, I wrote it when I was a newbie.

3) Paraphrasing Lewis Grizzard from a story submitted to the AJC by a stringer: "Chamblee's thrilling victory on the game's final play was somewhat marred by the death of its coach." The coach had died of a heart attack during the final play.

 

Hometown won the toss and chose to receive.

 

I saw this once:

"All (college team) had to do was play well enough to win."

Yikes.

 

(Just) Call him/her __________. I think everyone's used a variation of that one.

 

The weather is getting chilly, (hopefully), but there will be plenty of chili at the Stupid City Chili Cookoff this weekend- so I hope your have your spoon handy.


WTF!!!!

I know this is non sports but my editor wrote this one day. Who uses parenthesis in a lede? Who says they hope it gets cold? I for one don't.

I can think about 100 diff ledes that would be better involving warm chili and chilly weather.

 

Actually, it's commonly used as both "lead" or "lede," whichever you prefer. But whatever.

"It was a tale of two halves."......That's funny. I forgot about that one. I probably used that one at some point the past.

 

I always vote for "Christmas came early ..." or "So-and-so got an early Christmas present ..."
It's in many papers, every year.
Agree very much with "Steak" on the Webster's. That's also a staple of really bad oratory, sermons or speeches.

Technically, this wasn't a lede, but while I'm here I have to mention the day I realized I was not cut out for the desk and really needed to get back to writing.
An excellent high school writer wrote a piece about a kid making a pivotal play, and mentioned early that the kid's teammates were always kidding him about his big ears. Fair enough. Then there was some play-by-play, establishing what the kid did that was so important. Then came time for the transition out of play-by-play and back into a feature on the kid, which was handled in the following manner:
"But enough of this mumbo-jumbo, let's get back to Jones High's version of 'Dumbo!' ..."
I just sat there staring at the screen. I wanted to say something to the other people on the rim, but my voice wouldn't work. I think I was making little noises that sounded like "Ack, ack,ack" for several minutes.

 

These things need to happen every so often. Gets rid of the bad blood. [/Clemenza]

As for bad ledes, forgot about this one:

"John Smith wasn't supposed to get cancer."

Really? Who was?

 

One I've seen far too often:

John Smith picked a good time to break out of his slump.

I asked one reporter why he was ever in a slump if he could just pick the time he wanted to break out of it.

 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Good grief. ;D