8
Choosing Your Lead
What You’ll Learn_______________________
Remember that maxim used back in Chapter 6, “You’re only as good as your last act”? It’s true in Hollywood and in politics too. A hundred triumphs can be wiped out if your last act falls flat. Well, at risk of putting you in the same category as actors and politicians, journalists also have to heed the maxim, because the second most important part of a report, or of a whole newscast, is the last part—the last sentence, the last story.
Note what I just wrote: the end is “the second most important part.” What’s first? The beginning, or as it’s known in broadcasting, the lead. If you’re producing a newscast and one story in your rundown (the list of stories in a newscast) is an ...
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