I object to reporters writing news stories as though they were starting the great American novel.I don't mind magazine articles or blog pieces that utilize this approach, but the LAT does this sort of thing all the time.
I object to leads like this one in the LA Times this morning: “It was only 8 a.m., the day after Memorial Day, but the desert sun was already unforgiving. The heat radiated from the desert floor with a glittery sheen as the anthropologist and the team of soldiers set to work.”
Overwritten as it is, the lead could qualify for a Bulwer Lytton award. Who would imagine the story is about the military being forced, belatedly, to examine the remains of 10 airmen whose B-24 bomber crashed in the California desert on April 9, 1944?
In case you are wondering, novelist Bulwer Lytton is the fellow who once started a book with the words "It was a dark and stormy night." His novels made him rich enough to build the estate used as "Wayne manor" in the Tim Burton Batman movies.
1 comment:
And here's the 2006 winning entry of the Bulwer-Lytton award:
"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean."
Jim Guigli
Carmichael, CA
Congratulations, Jim! You win a one-year internship at the LAT!
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