Lead and nutgraph examples

EXAMPLE 1:

The Lonely Death of George Bell

By N. R. KLEINFIELD

They found him in the living room, crumpled up on the mottled carpet. The police did. Sniffing a fetid odor, a neighbor had called 911. The apartment was in north-central Queens, in an unassertive building on 79th Street in Jackson Heights. EVOCATIVE  LEAD WITH CAREFULLY CHOSEN ADJECTIVES

The apartment belonged to a George Bell. He lived alone. Thus the presumption was that the corpse also belonged to George Bell. It was a plausible supposition, but it remained just that, for the puffy body on the floor was decomposed and unrecognizable. Clearly the man had not died on July 12, the Saturday last year when he was discovered, nor the day before nor the day before that. He had lain there for a while, nothing to announce his departure to the world, while the hyperkinetic city around him hurried on with its business. CINEMATIC DESCRIPTION FOCUSES ON THE SUBJECT THEN PANS TO THE CITY

Neighbors had last seen him six days earlier, a Sunday. On Thursday, there was a break in his routine. The car he always kept out front and moved from one side of the street to the other to obey parking rules sat on the wrong side. A ticket was wedged beneath the wiper. The woman next door called Mr. Bell. His phone rang and rang.

Then the smell of death and the police and the sobering reason that George Bell did not move his car. SENTENCE MIMICS THE CRASHING INTO CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SOBERING REALITY

(NUTGRAPH comes next and sums up why this story is important and how it is representative of something that happens to some people and is sad):

Each year around 50,000 people die in New York, and each year the mortality rate seems to graze a new low, with people living healthier and longer. A great majority of the deceased have relatives and friends who soon learn of their passing and tearfully assemble at their funeral. A reverent death notice appears. Sympathy cards accumulate. When the celebrated die or there is some heart-rending killing of the innocent, the entire city might weep.

A much tinier number die alone in unwatched struggles. No one collects their bodies. No one mourns the conclusion of a life. They are just a name added to the death tables. In the year 2014, George Bell, age 72, was among those names.

EXAMPLE 2:

MassLive: Haymarket Cafe in Northampton makes bold move to end tipping, increase wages by Laura Newberry

NORTHAMPTON -- Sonia Perez does it all at Haymarket Cafe on Main Street.The 25-year-old mainly works in the kitchen, where she's paid $13 an hour, but helps out when needed as a server in the restaurant area or a barista at the cafe on the top floor.She's likely to make a considerable amount more as a server if tips are good, she said, but even so, her paycheck varies too much to be called stable."Some days you're tipped well and it's great," Perez said. "Other days you barely make enough to make ends meet."

NUTGRAPH COMES NEXT and explains how Perez is representative of wait people who will be paid more at a local restaurant that is eliminating tips, something that is being talked a lot about now:The unsteady financial reality and pay inequities between wait staff and back-of-the-house workers is recognized by Haymarket owner Peter Simpson, who has a kitchen background himself. That's why as of of Nov. 22, Haymarket Cafe will do away with tips and instead pay all employees $14 an hour, a rate that will increase by $1 each year until reaching $17 an hour in 2018.

EXAMPLE 3:Business boostersUMass homecoming football game draws crowds downtown, too

By CHRIS LINDAHL @cmlindahlAMHERST — When is a pre-game not a pre-game? When people leave a tailgate party at kickoff and head off in search of other amusements.And for many, that seemed the order of the day — to the delight of downtown Amherst restaurants, bars and shops.


NUTGRAPH comes next and puts this homecoming into perspective by pointing that homecoming, in general, is good for Amherst:

Homecoming weekend at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is typically a boon for business, when alumni and parents of current students camp out in town in search of a good time.And as proof, one needed to look no further than Antonio’s Pizza on North Pleasant Street. At 4 p.m., the scene was more akin to a weekend night than a pre-dinner lull, with crowds spilling out of the glass doors and onto the sidewalk.