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Journalism 1 • Spring 2014Dan Kennedy

For five indelible days, the unthinkable became routine in Boston. And no one felt that more than the police and agents mounting the largest manhunt in regional history and parsing its most complex crime scene. It took a cast of thousands — also courage, sacrifice, teamwork, and luck — to crack the case. But they did it.

A long line of Patriots fan [sic] clutching Aaron Hernandez jerseys of all sizes and colors wrapped around Gillette Stadium early Saturday morning to say goodbye to their #81s.

Seeking to mollify international officials impatient with Syria for missing deadlines to destroy its chemical weapons, Russia said on Tuesday that the Syrian government planned to send a large shipment out of the country this month and to export its entire stockpile by March 1.

It's a story that almost defies belief: A man leaves Mexico in December 2012 for a day of shark fishing and ends up surviving 13 months on fish, birds and turtles before washing ashore on the remote Marshall Islands about 6,500 miles away.

Earlier this week, Jimmy Fallon, the newly crowned king of American late-night TV comedy, was asked by reporters at the Television Critics Association to describe his feelings about taking over the helm of the legendary Tonight Show. He recalled, twinkly-eyed, how as a kid he had begged his parents to let him watch the show under its then host Johnny Carson “because I knew it was on really late and I was getting away with something”.

The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is engaged in a tense standoff with the United Nations after a damning report on the Holy See’s handling of the clerical sex abuse scandal was branded out of date, unfair and ideological by a top Vatican official.

They help her into a sequined dress, tie a good luck balloon to the bed, and share a cake bidding “Bon Voyage.”

With mile after mile of joint-jarring impact, of battered quads and blackened toenails, marathon training is daunting under the best of circumstances.

Snowplows rumbled down empty streets. Workers cleared the sidewalk by a Seaport train station for phantom pedestrians. At usually jammed intersections, there was nary a vehicle in sight.

At the bottom of a steep muddy path to a fetid swamp, a rudimentary plywood-and-posterboard kennel looked like the last place anyone who cares about dogs would want to keep one.

CVS Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales, announced on Wednesday that it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October.

The police arrived at the house just after breakfast, dressed in full riot gear, and set up a perimeter at the front and back. Not long after, animal rights marchers began filling the street: scores of people, young and old, yelling accusations of murder and abuse, invoking Hitler, as neighbors stepped out onto their porches and stared.

In an attempt to scare teens away from cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is launching a $115 million ad campaign that doesn’t mention lung cancer, heart disease, or emphysema, not even once. No body bags will surface and no smoke will rise from a hole in the throat, either — graphic images the agency previously wanted to put on cigarette packages before manufacturers sued to block them.

The scowling security guy in the camouflage outfit pointed at the reporter’s gray bag and demanded to know what it contained.

A laptop, the reporter said, and started to unzip the pocket.

“Don’t worry,” the man said, placing a hand on the zipper. “I believe you.”

The Northeastern hockey team has not hoisted the coveted Beanpot since 1988, some five months before 25-year-old senior backup goaltender Bryan Mountain, the oldest member on NU’s roster, was even born.

Games, games, so many games. From January to December. All over the planet. In so many sports.

A brain-dead pregnant woman lies on a hospital bed. Doctors want to keep her on life support until they can deliver her baby. An anguished husband waits.

When Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz stepped down three years ago, he moved back into his old faculty office.

But unlike most history professors, Reinharz does not teach any classes, supervise graduate students, or attend departmental meetings. He did not bother posing for the department photo. The chairwoman for Near Eastern and Judaic Studies said she did not even know whether he was officially a member of her department.

Yet Reinharz remains one of the highest paid people on campus.

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

On Friday, exactly a week before the Olympics were set to open just 180 miles away, Russia’s security forces appeared on Makhov Street at 8:30 a.m. and cordoned off the area around a brick and stone house. One of the men inside called his father, who said it was the first he had heard from his son in 10 months.

“He said, ‘Papa, we’re surrounded,' ” the father said. “ 'I know they’re going to kill us.’ Then he said farewell.”

After more than 20 years of hosting the crown jewel of late-night television, Jay Leno steps off “The Tonight Show” stage in Burbank, Calif., for the final time Thursday night, ending a reign that saw a dramatic change in the television landscape.

Lunchtime at Google’s Kendall Square headquarters is an epicurean’s delight.

Early on Thursday morning, on the drive into work, David Ivaska rammed a couple of barrels in South Boston. He did this because they’re the only thing people put out as space savers that you can really punt with a bumper. Cones just get stuck under your car.

Football fans and degenerate gamblers had plenty to bet on during Sunday night’s Super Bowl:

Would kickoff temperature be above or below 34 degrees? (It was above.) Would the national anthem be sung in less than 2:30? (It was.) Would Knowshon Moreno cry? (He didn’t.)

A day after the NFL wrapped up a mostly hassle-free Super Bowl in New York/New Jersey, here’s another bet that seems pretty safe:

Boston will host a Super Bowl sooner rather than later.

Is Massachusetts, now in its seventh year under Chapter 58, the health care overhaul signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney in 2006, a preview of what the rest of the country can expect under Obamacare? If so, my fellow Americans, you’d better get used to waiting.

Curt Schilling — a standout pitcher who belonged to three World Series championship teams before becoming an ESPN analyst — has cancer, he announced Wednesday.

A judge on Wednesday ordered a Texas teenager who was sentenced to 10 years’ probation in a drunken-driving crash that killed four people to go to a rehabilitation facility paid for by his parents.

A father with his children in a Greenwich Village playground. A disheveled man hovering around the lone ATM in a grocery store, withdrawing the exact sum of $200, over and over, for an hour. A guy texting his buddy to invite him over to watch the New York Knicks game at his apartment.

Not long ago, my wife and I had a good friend over for a glass of wine. We had drunk just enough to feel pleasantly liberated in thought. Or at least that’s how I felt. Probably that’s why it seemed a good moment to bring it up. So, I calmly announced to my wife: “I’m going to build my own coffin. I just thought you should know.”

Kadyn Hancock’s aunt said she repeatedly tried to warn state officials that the 13-month-old’s mother might hurt him. But no one heeded her pleas, and Kadyn’s mother killed her baby in 2010.

Scott Brown has been a fashion model, a lawyer, a national guardsman, and United States senator from Massachusetts. Now he has added a new job description: e-mail spammer.

David Portnoy’s Barstool Sports is the bible of bro culture. Rude, crude, sexist and often mean-spirited — even Howard Stern has complaints — the site has become a go-to for young men who say they are disenfranchised by the mainstream media. With legions of fans, Barstool is expanding its original content offerings and even eyeing a move into broadcasting. Is this take-no-prisoners style of entertainment the future? And can Portnoy continue to cash in on controversy?

Centered in a family bubble in the corner of the room, not far from the all-night turkey buffet and the speaker pumping Kool and the Gang’s “Funky Stuff,” Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman greets a most-welcome intruder with a wide grin. Coach Pete Carroll emerges from a darkened hallway at the Westin Hotel at 1:30 a.m. to greet Sherman’s family, haloed around the All-Pro cornerback whose right foot is encased in a walking boot. Wedged into the same chair, his girlfriend sits at his side. His mother and father sit across from them, flanked by friends and family. Carroll splits the group and leans in, clasping Richard’s hand in his.