The most valuable part of my internship this summer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is working with some very experienced journalists. Harry Levins is my 65-year-old coworker and journalist extrarordinaire. He has been in the business for two of my lifetimes and I always enjoy getting little bits of wisdom from him. He's a word man.
Today's lesson: cliche natural disaster verbs in ledes
Hurricanes lash.
Fires sweep.
Floodwaters pour over.
Tornadoes touch down.
Earthquakes shake (and sometimes rattle).
Typhoons pound.
and my favorite... Buses plunge.
The solution? Lead with the number of deaths and amount of destruction. That's what people care about. We know what a hurricane does in general, so give us some specifics up front. Thanks, Harry!
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