Looking for a sharp, fresh way to start a story is a noble effort. Unfortunately, sometimes several reporters, all in search of a clever approach, will find one. The same one.
To some degree this is unavoidable, with so little truly new under the sun. But when the leads are too similar, or happen to land right next to each other on the page, each one suffers. Anecdotal leads highlighting a person's name - often an unfamiliar name - have a particularly familiar ring.
Here are the leads of side-by-side front-page stories one recent day. Each was fine in itself. But in adjacent stories, the similar structure - the named individual who has not done something in the first paragraph, but then provides an illuminating twist in paragraph two - seemed a bit too similar.
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James Simons, a Long Island investor and philanthropist, has not given a cent to President Obama's re-election campaign this year.
But Mr. Simons has given at least $2 million to Pr iorities USA Action, the “super PAC†aiding Mr. Obama, and $2 million more to two allied groups supporting Democrats in Congress, making him the biggest Democratic super PAC donor in the country.
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Bruce C. Ratner did not pretend to be much of a basketball fan when he paid $300 million in 2004 for the New Jersey Nets. Before long, the team had the worst record in the National Basketball Association, and he had a reputation as one of the worst owners in professional sports.
But he also had the leverage he needed to pull off a real estate megadeal.
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Inside on the same day, a third story had a similar approach:
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Klee Benally, a member of the Navajo tribe, has gone to the mountains just north of here to pray, and he has gone to get arrested. He has chained himself to excavators; he has faced down bulldozers. For 10 years, the soft-spoken activist has fought a ski resort's expansion plans in the San Francisco Peaks t hat include clear-cutting 74 acres of forest and piping treated sewage effluent onto a mountain to make snow.
But he appears to be losing the battle.
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More Strangers in the Lead
And on the very same day, a few pages apart in the Metro section, we had these two similar descriptions of unfamiliar, troubled souls. Again, neither lead is bad in itself, and of course reporters can't be aware of what their colleagues are writing. But writers and editors alike should be on guard against predictable, tried-and-true formulas.
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Eugene Palmer was always a loner, his neighbors in the Rockland County town of Haverstraw said. Armed with a shotgun, they said, Mr. Palmer often menaced people who strayed uninvited onto his hilly, overgrown property, and he was known to retreat into the woods near his home to camp and hunt.
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Mohamed Bah had not seemed himself lately. Day after day, the 28-year-old taxi driver failed to show up for work a nd skipped his classes at Borough of Manhattan Community College. When his mother called from Guinea, Mr. Bah acted as though he did not know her, the police said Wednesday.
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In a Word
This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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The odds that the Maggy Frances collection will remain off the map are unlikely.
The event is unlikely; the odds are small, low, etc.
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And on the eve of their first debate Sunday, one of four this month, their entirely different approaches to courting women voters are at the heart of an election that has become a window onto the ways gender issues, explicitly and implicitly, can play out.
Ms. McMahon has based her appeal on her record as a successful businesswoman and on a strikingly personal attempt to bond with women voters and, no doubt, to overcome the negative connotations many took last time from the wrestling company tha t created her fortune.
Make it “female voters†or just “women.â€
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President Obama and Mitt Romney did not just spar over tax policy and deficit reduction, they fought to see who could keep a look of amused, there-you-go-again contempt for the longest number of minutes.
Make it “who could keep a look of … contempt the longest.â€
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To them, what Mr. Obama said in the video was a perfect confluence of all their complaints about the way the mainstream media has covered Mr. Obama: credulously and insufficiently.
Though “the mainstream media†may often be portrayed as homogeneous, for us they still take plural verbs. Make it “have covered.â€
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The film is a tightly woven two hours, much different in pacing and emotion than Mr. Burns's multipart epics on baseball, jazz and the Civil War.
Make it “much different … from.â€
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The 14-year-old Fulamutu is one of the few willing to de tail what she says happened to her at the hands of a pastor.
It should be “one of the few willing to detail what they say happened to themâ€- or else the sentence should be rewritten.
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Those who mistake “Total Recall†for a salacious tell-all may not be that interested in how many Mr. Olympia contests he won (seven) or who he beat for a Golden Globe in 1977 (Truman Capote and the kid who played Damien in “The Omenâ€).
Make it “whom he beat.â€
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A federal appeals court panel recently upheld the rules adopted by the E.P.A. as a result of that ruling, saying that the agency's interpretation of the law and the Supreme Court decision were “unambiguously correct.â€
Make it “interpretation … was.†Or if we are viewing these as two different interpretations, make the noun plural.
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After a daylong hearing that included the testimony of two cheerleaders, District Judge Steven Thomas of Hardin County de cided to extend for an additional 14 days more a temporary restraining order that he had put in place two weeks ago.
Redundant; we don't need both “additional†and “more.â€
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Other sows in the pen sported abrasions, torn ears and bloody tail stumps - all souvenirs of her attentions.
This seems like a particularly odd use of the word. The stylebook says this:
sport does not mean merely wear; it means wear ostentatiously or flamboyantly: Even at a dinner for pinstriped Wall Street bankers, the senator sported an iridescent flamingo necktie.
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All last week, Lorne Michaels, the creator and longtime executive producer of “Saturday Night Live†was working the phone trying to nail down a visit to the show from either of this year's presidential candidates. By late Friday, it looked like it wouldn't happen, at least for this last week.
Avoid this use of “like†as a conjunction; make it “as if.†Also, in the first sentence, we needed a comma after “Saturday Night Live.â€
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Like other presidents, Mr. Obama's debate preparations were hindered by his day job, his practice sessions often canceled or truncated because of events, advisers said. …
By the time Mr. Obama retreated to Nevada for a final couple days of practice, the debate prep team was getting by on as little as three hours of sleep a night as they crafted answers and attack lines.
In the first sentence, the “like†phrase dangles, without a noun to modify (it does not refer to “preparationsâ€). In the second sentence, make it “couple of days.â€
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“Animal Practice,†first seen in a sneak-peak premiere during the Olympics last month and now taking a regular slot, presents what it hopes are the wacky high jinks at a New York animal hospital.
Make it “peek,†of course.
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The first debate between President Obama and Mitt Rom ney, so long anticipated, quickly sunk into an unenlightening recitation of tired talking points and mendacity.
Make it “sank.â€
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The man, Mark C. Hotton of West Islip, N.Y., has been sued for fraud in federal court in New York and Florida in recent years, with plaintiffs alleging that Mr. Hotton and his wife Sherri have hoodwinked investors by inflating account balances of their businesses and diverting payments for the Hottons' own benefit.
He has only one wife. Her name should be set off with commas.
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