Monday, February 25, 2008

News story lede

I am not 100% positive which way I am going with my news story. I was thinking about concentrating on the fact that the university is contributing to students debt problems by allowing banks to solicit on the campus. Then I was thinking I might write about how students aren't educated enough on financial matters including debt. So here are my ROUGH ledes:

Towson University students are being targeted on their own campuses by credit card companies with the universities permission.

OK, I already know I'm not a big fan of this one. I have "ON their own campuses" "BY credit card companies" "WITH permission..." Help?!

Towson students fail "Debt 101" because of inexperience and feel the effects long after graduation.

5 comments:

Stacy Spaulding said...

Very good drafts here! Here are a few questions to help you keep thinking about this.
1) On the first lede, is it in SVO? Who's doing the targeting? Who is being targeted? Does changing the sentence structure get rid of those annoying words on, by, with?

2) In the second lede, what exactly is debt 101? Is that a class? Is it a direct, succinct, concise statement of the problem?

Ashley's Blog said...

I like the angle of your lede and think it will lead to a great story! I understand what you mean about the prepositional phrase thing, though.
How about something like
Credit card companies target TU students on campus with permission from the university?

Ashley's Blog said...

oh wait, i just read my comment.... bad suggestion :(

Megan said...

I love your first lede i think it sounds really good!! I also think that it will be a news story i want to read!!!!!

kunkel said...

the second one is a lot better. its specific and easier to read.