Lede Re-work: The Washington Post

In the first part of this assignment, I identified a lede from a story in The Washington Post that could use some work:

Headline: Derek Jeter says 2014 season will be his last

Lede: Derek Jeter isn’t going to spend the 2014 season answering questions and addressing speculation about whether this will be his final season in baseball.

The problems I identified included: too vague, no context, no more information except the sport, does not answer the big question of why and instead offers some conjecture, and could have pulled on the heartstrings a little more.

I would rewrite the lead as follows:

It feels like a job. After a season plagued by injury, New York Yankees’ shortstop Derek Jeter announced on Facebook that 2014 will be his final season in baseball.

The short sentence to start it off and the phrase about an injury-filled season provides more of an emotional tug. This also answers the big question of why Jeter is retiring instead of making the reader wait until the third paragraph of the story. I also provided needed context by including his team and how the announcement was made, which I moved from the second paragraph. I kept the phrase at the end.

With this lede, I would also adjust the second paragraph of the story by only including the quote from Jeter. This works nicely with the third paragraph as well:

“I could not be more sure,” Jeter wrote. “I know it in my heart. The 2014 season will be my last year playing professional baseball.”

Jeter, who will turn 40 in June, played in only 17 games last season because of lingering issues with a broken ankle he suffered in the 2012 playoffs.