Analysis: Leads

For this blog post, I am analyzing how the lead in this CNN report serves as an efficient beginning for the article.

The lead contains information in regards to "the who" (President Obama), "the when" (Friday), "the what" (a new college affordability plan), and it also briefly touches on how they intend to enforce the new plan. Information that was not included in the lead was where this was announced as well as why Obama is trying to put this plan into action. Though "the where" and "the why" were not included in the lead, these details were included within the first few paragraphs of the article.

I think this is an effective lead because it contains enough information to stand on its own and immediately engages the target audience (high school and college students). Although there is nothing about "the when" or "the why" in the lead itself, it is not crucial for the audience to know that information to comprehend the overall message of the article. If they did include "the when" and "the why" for this particular scenario, the lead would no longer be concise. It would be too wordy and choppy to lure the reader in,