Never look for the story in the 'lede. ' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, … - William Safire

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

In all my travels I have never seen the hospitality of San Francisco equalled anywhere in the world.

William Safire

Never look for the story in the 'lede. ' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.

Lede, Looks, News, Nuggets, Places, Savvy

Same Author Quotes

After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.

Belches, Eating, Giving, Gourmet, Satisfaction, White

Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing; the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.

Boxing, Knowing, Prose, Reader, Space

Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.

Ambiguity, Ems, Eye, Hot, Shot

Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks. ”'

Avoid, Mark, Marks, Quotation, Quotation Marks, Quotations

. . . it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; F. D. R. used the phrase earlier.

Baby, Forget, Hitler, Nwo, Order, Popularization