Lede Comparison [February 14, 2014] -- Comcast Time Warner Merger

IF A CABLE GIANT BECOMES BIGGER -- The Editorial Board, The New York Times

"Regulators might be tempted to agree with Comcast that its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in stock poses no threat to competition and would actually benefit consumers by giving the company more resources to invest in new services. But government officials should not accept that argument without conducting a thorough investigation into what effect a merger between the country’s two largest cable companies would have on the media and the Internet."

This lede is clean without being soulless, concise without restricting the rest of the article, and highly informative. It acts as a good "table of contents," spelling out exactly who is on what side for what reason while offering nodes for the upcoming argument in a way that draws me in.

COMCAST'S TIME WARNER DEAL IS BAD FOR AMERICA -- Susan Crawford, Bloomberg

"David Cohen, Comcast Corp.'s executive vice president and the mastermind behind its deal to buy Time Warner Cable Inc., sounded pugnacious and confident on a recent conference call with investors. Regulatory and antitrust approval of the deal, he says, will happen within the next nine to 12 months. But even Cohen had to acknowledge that the public might be worried about the power of this combination. 'It may sound scary,' he said."

While more editorial than journalistic, Crawford approaches this merger from several different angles under the umbrella theme of "bad for America." How will America compete globally without switching to cheaper, more efficient fiber-optic networks? Are we stripping Americans of choice if this merger monopolizes "high-capacity wired connection"? And how will the Department of Justice enforce competition in an industry devoid of it?  Unfortunately, the lede is buried pretty deep in the piece. The excerpt I provided is the first paragraph, but the article's true lede doesn't pop up until the third. Crawford chooses instead to start with a profile of Comcast's already staggering dominion over satellite companies, which is wise for the layman, but loses me right off the bat. Cohen's quote may add heft to the introduction of the article, but I was hopping for a little more about "badness."