ASSIGNMENT:
Jeremy Fox requested students rewrite a lede that needed improvement. This student struggled for hours with just a few lines and developed a deep appreciation for writing good ledes! This rewrite may not be better than the original. Utterly Hopeless!
ORIGINAL LEDE:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has agreed to Pakistan's
request to stop drone-launched missile strikes except on al-Qaeda operational leaders while Islamabad pursues peace
talks with local Taliban militants, U.S. officials say.
REWRITE:
LEDE One: Peace efforts between the Pakistani government and local Taliban militants failed last fall. The death of Hakimullah Mehsud: an al-Qaeda leader killed by a U.S. drone missile strike Nov. 1, disrupted the talks. In response, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government asked for cessation of all U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan with an eye towards renewed negotiations.
REWRITE:
LEDE One: Peace efforts between the Pakistani government and local Taliban militants failed last fall. The death of Hakimullah Mehsud: an al-Qaeda leader killed by a U.S. drone missile strike Nov. 1, disrupted the talks. In response, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government asked for cessation of all U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan with an eye towards renewed negotiations.
President Obama’s administration agreed to stop strikes against the Pakistani Taliban, but not the al-Qaeda operatives. A U.S. official confirmed the administration's position Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasizing, “… [The U.S.] still has a green light on Al Qaeda targets.”
[Note regarding lede one: Yes, lede one is anecdotal and the article represents a hard hitting news story. All of this information is in the article. A statement by a US official was slightly modified. The pronoun they was replaced with the U.S. and marked in brackets to denote the words were not in the original quote. A verb was changed to the past tense in the same quote. Not sure if that was cricket--dps.]
LEDE Two: I wrote and liked this lede, but believed it fell short: Pakistanis search for peace—again.
[Lede two speaks obliquely to a history of internal turmoil, e.g. use of the word again.]
The entire AP Wire report was located, [at least it appeared to be the original AP Wire Report—it could also be a modified one.] A link below was included, so readers could consider the lede in terms of the actual story out of Washington, reprinted in the LA Times, written by Ken Delanian, February 5th, 2014.
Rewriting this lede is a reminder of
how quickly events occur and are reported.
Today's headline:
Taliban kill senior Pakistan officer as peace talks falter by Maria Golovnina
Today's headline:
Taliban kill senior Pakistan officer as peace talks falter by Maria Golovnina
Reuters, 2/18/2014
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