I read the story in yesterday’s Times — in print — about South Park’s creators making a sweet deal to share revenue and ownership in a larger empire. I was appalled at how long the print story took to get to the damned point. Have they forgotten the idea of a lead? Why am I reading this story? I get the writer’s great insights and prose? No. To get news.
That kind of Vaseline writing won’t work online. Look at NYTimes.com and on the business page they have to get right to the point or no one will click. Online it says:
‘South Park’ Creators Win Ad Sharing in Deal
Comedy Central and the creators of the popular show, “South Park,†have agreed to create a hub to spread the program and related material across the Internet, mobile platforms and video games.
In the paper, here’s how long it takes to get to the point:
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 26 — In March, the season premiere of “South Park†began by barging into typically risqué territory, with a squirm-inducing bit about the taboo of using a certain racial epithet.To Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators and executive producers of “South Park,†Comedy Central’s most lucrative franchise, the clip ought to have been blazing its authorized way around the Internet, its flouting of social norms picking up ad revenue with every set of eyeballs. Instead, the clip was easy to find, but it wasn’t making any money for its rightful owners.
“If I’m overseas and have to get an episode right away,†Mr. Stone lamented, “you literally have to go to an illegal download site.â€
Because of the slow entry into the digital realm of Viacom, Comedy Central’s parent, and an almost crippling deal point in Mr. Stone’s and Mr. Parker’s contract, the lewd, rude, crudely animated and mordantly funny series — one that began with a viral video before the term even existed — has barely had a presence as an avalanche of user-generated entertainment hit the Web. Meanwhile, sites like YouTube met the demand for free “South Park†clips without paying for the privilege.
Now, however, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker and their bosses at Comedy Central, a unit of Viacom’s MTV Networks, are attempting to leapfrog to the vanguard of Hollywood’s transition into Web. In a joint venture that involves millions in up-front cash and a 50-50 split of ad revenues, the network and the two creative partners have agreed to create a hub to spread “South Parkâ€-related material across the Net, mobile platforms, and video games.
I was ready to scream on the subway. Get to the point. Bring back the inverted pyramid. Stop burying the lead.
There’s plenty of room in journalism — especially print journalism, I’d argue — for things loftier and more stimulating than the inverted pyramid. One of the most common statements on the future of journalism bangs us over the head with the idea that news(paper) businesses will survive by breaking news on the Web and using print for most analysis and deeper thought.
That’s what I see here: an article that takes its time — not in a bad way — to tell a story. Maybe I don’t give a damn about South Park’s new ad deal in and of itself. But in the context of Comedy Central struggling to find the right way to operate in this new media world, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting.
And unless the print edition had a different headline that what’s on the Web — ” ‘South Park’ Creators Win Ad Sharing in Deal” — that headline gets the job done. There’s your lead. If you want to be a “get me the news now ’cause I don’t want to read the whole article” guy, stop there.
One problem I run into every day in my RSS feed of Times stories: Headlines that *also* don’t convey the lead. They’re forever putting out headlines saying that “Chemical Company does X” instead of “BASF does X” or “Finance Executive Indicted . . .” instead of “Former XCorp CFO Joe Schmoe Indicted.” Too often the partial feed in the RSS doesn’t clear this up, either, since the meat — which company, which executive — is buried. Once you notice the trend, it becomes maddening. (It may affect me worse because I caught the tail-end of old-school journalism training in the 1980s, but I doubt it.)
The problem here is more bait-and-switch than burying the lede.
I didn’t mind the soft lede approach so much as that the particulars mentioned in the lede were irrelevant to the story — even the mini-story they chose to get things going. The irony that Stone needs YouTube and gets no money from it is something to which everyone can relate, and neatly sets up the impact of the deal.
But I was waiting for circle to be closed on the N-word episode and was so distracted looking for it that I skated right past the news, and had to go back.
That’s why the print version fails. Take your readers on a detour for effect, if you are skilled at this, but don’t lead us down a blind ally.
“Get to the point. Bring back the inverted pyramid. Stop burying the lead.”
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Wouldn’t be much of a problem if this were a rare occurrence, but this happens all the time now. I long for the days when I could read the first couple of paragraphs, get the essentials, then decide how much additional flavor I need. It’s like newspapers are wasting our time…
When people just can’t seem to get to the point, it’s often because they don’t really have one.
“Call me Ishmael. I’m crewing for a Captain looking to kill the white whale that bit off his leg. He finds the whale, but it kills him.”
Uh, Chico, it’s a story about South Park, not Moby Fucking Dick. That’s just the problem: The reporter thinks he’s writing a novel. He’s supposed to impart a bit of information on my subway ride.
Bad analogy, good response.
Maybe newsprint rationing would do it. Worked wonders for journalism in the UK.
And why TF “lede”? Citation? In the UK it’s the “intro” which has an obvious etymology.
[...] have spent quite a bit of time on the importance of writing a good lede and how it is even more important on the web. It is my firm belief that lede writing is the #1 skill any new media journalist needs to learn. [...]