I chose Inside Venezuela’s Crumbling Mental Hospitals for my story lede.
“The state-run psychiatric hospital here in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, has long been a forgotten place, filled with forgotten people.”
It continues:
“But with Venezuela suffering from a severe economic crisis, this mental institution has almost no drugs to control the afflictions tormenting its patients.”
It’s a solid lede. It certainly made me want to continue and it set a chilling tone for the rest of the article.
The reason I particularly appreciate this lede is the way it fits in the context of the larger article. In a story that literally details a patient eating another patient’s nose, starving mentally ill patients, and delusional, weeping, schizophrenic grandmothers — it would be cheap and easy journalism to pick the most gruesome detail and make it the lede. The writers (Kohut and Casey) instead fittingly focused on the systemic problems of a government too corrupt to accept foreign aid, and a vulnerable populace society would rather forget than take care of. The story isn’t about a nose being bitten off (though the picture will haunt you for weeks). It’s about the state-run hospitals from hell. It’s not a flashy lede, but it’s a lede that dares you to keep reading, or otherwise confront the uncomfortable truth of your own apathy.