by Alexa Ball
A story ran by CNN on a major car pile up on a major interstate in Flordia did not start out with the typical hard story news lead that you would normally read.
The lead if the story titled Florida interstate crashes 'horrendous,' victim says; 10 dead from CNN reads as follows:
"After the crashes stopped, Steven Camps said all he could hear was the sound of crying as the air, heavy with smoke, shone red from vehicle fires."
The lead details the who right away, even though we are completely unaware of who this man, Steven Camps is. There is no when, or where listed. We are also forced to infer what the story is going to be about. We are able to understand that there are vehicles on fire and people are crying, so we assume there has been some sort of accident.
Usually breaking news stories, such as this one, do not start out this way. In the news lead you get the most information possible and get more specific details like the name of a man involved and what he heard later in the story.
I believe the writer chose an alternative approach to add more emphasis and drama to the story. This news lead is much more of an attention grabber that will lead us to want to read more of the story.
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