Special Leads

here is the link to the story

This narrative lead from the New York Times emphasizes both the history and tradition of Simmons Beautyrest. I like the choice here because if the writer, used a summary news lead about another business going bankrupt, readers might skip over it thinking its the same old story they have heard too many times.

I don't see how this example could be changed to make it a better narative lead but I think it would also work as a contrast lead. The author could try to condense and combine the second and fourth graphs. In my opinion, both leads would have very similar effects in this case.

here is the link to the story

This quote lead tries to gives a human interest appeal to a story about new war technologies, but also helps flow into the rest of the story. I think the quote is good and the author ties it in well.

He could have easily used this somewhere else in the story and used a summary news lead, but it definitely would have drastically changed the feel of the story. Because he used this lead, it is hard to tell what the purpose of the story is. I think if he got creative enough, the author could have used any of the special leads but this, or the summary news lead, would work best.