Lead Critique

For the most part I feel that Jeff Zeleny's lead in the "New York Times" that starts his article off works quite well on telling the reader what it's about while trying to get us to read more. His lead that he wrote to start his story about "Thousands Rally in Capitol to Protest Big Government" has all the info that we need and covers the five W's of the story. We don't really get a "How" in the lead, but it doesn't really matter if were told how they protested. There's no real set rules or guidelines for protesting so I think that we can all figure out how the people were getting their points a crossed (with a lot of yelling and screaming.)

I wouldn't say that all five W's are as clearly stated as they could be, and perhaps one or two might even be implied, but overall they seem to be there in the lead. The "WHO" of the lead is right at the beginning only a few words in when Zeleny tells us that it is a "sea of protesters" that are the subject of the story. We find out a little farther along in the lead that it is actually the "largest rally against President Obama since he took office." Zeleny doesn't come right out and state the "WHAT" of the story, but since it is about protesters it is sort of implied that they were, well protesting. It wouldn't make sence if they were protesters doing community service, so even though he doesn't tell us directly it is simple enough that since we know the "WHO" that we know the "WHAT." We're told in the second line that it occurred on Saturday on "the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall." So Zeleny gives us the "WHEN" and "WHERE" in the same line of the lead. The "WHY" of the story is also sort of implied, Zeleny writes that the protest was "a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government." He tells us that this protest is sort of the last stand of the summer protests that have been going on with health care and a growing Government, but he doesn't tell us exactly that this protest is about health care. If you keep reading after the lead, you actually find out that the protesters are protesting a lot of things, including gun rights and lower taxes. However the use of the word "broader" in the lead sort of helps to tell us that these protesters were protesting against more then just health care reform.

I think that the lead gives us the right amount of info that the reader will need to figure out what the story is about. It doesn't feel like too much info or not enough, but I think he could be a little more clear on some of the facts of the event. The only thing that maybe I would revise would be to state what exactly the protesters were protesting. However like I stated in the paragraph above, even though it isn't directly stated, Zeleny still gives us the info that tells us that the protesters were protesting for many different issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html?hp