The Best Pulitzer Lead (or Lede) of 2023 Is …

The Best Pulitzer Lead (or Lede) of 2023 Is …

I have been reading Pulitzer Prize winning stories for the better part of a decade now, paying close attention to the leads, or ledes, if you will. Naturally, ordinary leads can become the beginning of a great story. Furthermore, a lead that seems promising may not pan out.

Toast to the Pulitzer Prize winners of this year. I salute each of you for being defenders of democracy and the truth. It is my self-appointed task to choose the finest lead from all of your fantastic effort and to present an argument for it. The reward is the ability to brag.

Unless a tale immediately catches my attention, I will typically simply take into account the lead of the first entry.

Why is a lead a good lead?I appreciate the image used by John McPhees, where he compares a lead to a flashlight that you beam into the story's well.Just enough of the bottom must be seen for you to understand what you are getting into.

Yesterday afternoon in Washington Square Park, a 17-year-old kid chased his pet squirrel up a tree, setting off a chain of events that resulted in 22 arrests and eight injuries, including five police officers.

You might want to go on to another column if you don't like that one.

The AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine wins the prize for best Pulitzer lead on the first Pulitzer story I've seen this year. The Public Service Award is given out. Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, and Lori Hinnant are listed in the byline:

Ukraine's Mariupol (AP) All of the children's bodies are buried here, thrown into this small trench that was hurriedly dug into Mariupol's freezing ground, all while the shelling continues nonstop.

Kirill, an 18-month-old, suffered a shrapnel damage to his skull that was too severe for his little toddler body to handle. Iliya, 16, was playing soccer on a school field when an explosion caused her legs to explode. One of the first children in Mariupol to pass away from a Russian shell was a girl, no older than six, who was wearing pajamas featuring cartoon unicorns.

In this mass grave outside the city, they are piled up with scores of others. A man slumped at the disintegrating curb, weighed down by stones and draped in a bright blue tarp. A woman with her legs neatly bound at the ankles with a sliver of white fabric, draped in a bedsheet striped in red and gold. Workers throw the bodies in as quickly as they can since their own chances of surviving are improved the less time they spend in the open.

Volodymyr Bykovskyi, an enraged worker, pulled crinkling black body bags off a truck and said, "The only thing (I want) is for this to be finished." That group of people that initiated this, damn them all!

Analysis: This is an incredible lead that is chock full of vividly recorded details and skillfully woven into a story that takes the reader to that horrible place and back in time. The opening paragraph, in my opinion, acts as the formal lead, and the subsequent paragraphs bolster it. The words "the bodies of the children" is horrifying enough, but to have them identified in the following line, each with the unique mark of their murder, is far worse. An enraged worker's voice concludes the paragraph. It is still essential to excellent journalism writing: Obtain a nice quotation early in the narrative. I should acknowledge the guts it takes to deliver this literary interpretation.

Kudos to Eli Saslow, who is widely considered as one of the finest feature writers of his time. His second Pulitzer for the Washington Post was just awarded to him. This lead presents us to an unsung hero of the American experience throughout the pandemic and homelessness epidemic. She works as a bus driver and, as we can see from the outset, must earn a living under trying circumstances every day.

Denver Suna Karabay leaned against the bus's steering wheel to say her morning prayers after adjusting her eye makeup in the rearview mirror. She said, 'Please, allow me to be patient. Permit me to be kind and giving. Examining the bus one more time, she made sure the floor was swept, the seats were scrubbed, the handrails were disinfected, and the gas tank was full for her ten-hour shift on the busiest business road in the city. After driving to her first stop, she awaited the precise time of 5:32 a.m. before opening the doors.

She greeted the first customer of the day—a barefoot man with a blanket and pillow—and said, "Good morning." He inserted 29 cents into the $3 ride's fare machine. He stated, "That's all I got," to which Suna nodded and waved him on.

She greeted the next couple in line, who had a big, loose dog and three plastic rubbish bags full of stuff, and said, "Happy Friday." according to one of the owners, a service pet. As soon as the dog leaped onto the dashboard, he reached into his pocket and took out a bus pass, which he proceeded to shred on the floor.

A service animal? Question from Suna. Are you certain?

What have I already told you? said the traveler. Just get the darn bus moving.

Analysis: The ride-along is a traditional newspaper narrative format. What's it like to drive a city bus, an ambulance, a police car, or a garbage truck for the entire day or night? Include the scene where the reporter tries to blend in with the background as the events take place. Eli Saslow is aware of the demands placed on narrative and the distinctions between stories and reports. The Who develops into a figure who fixes her makeup and says her prayers right away. What is explained in the scenes' action. An events timeline is used to express the When. There are voices, but they are not quoting. Rather, dialogue turns into yet another means of expressing action. In a matter of moments

In the field of Explanatory Reporting, Caitlin Dickerson of The Atlantic deserves recognition. In 30,000 words, she investigates the practice of severing children from their parents at the Southern border. This begs the question of whether a short lead can successfully introduce a long story. (As an English major, I must remind readers that the opening line of Moby Dick's American epic is "Call me Ishmael."

Usually a lengthy tale the first section of a half-book is an introduction rather than a lead. The objective is to gently guide the reader into something they might not be inclined to read, not to capture their attention.

Cynthia Quintana works as a therapist for kids going through the immigration system in the United States. When she first meets a new patient at her Grand Rapids, Michigan office, she follows the same routine: she calls the parents or closest relatives to reassure them that the child is safe and being well-cared for, and she gives them her 24-hour contact information.

Usually, this process is completed within a few hours of the kids arriving. The majority are teenagers who brought notebooks across the border and either wrote down or committed to memory the phone numbers of their families. When their families first get in touch, they are usually scared and anxiously awaiting word after sending their children into another nation on their own out of desperation to find safety and a better future.

But Quintana came upon an unusual situation in the summer of 2017. A youngster from Guatemala, three years old, with black hair cut in a bowl and a toothy smile, took a seat at her desk. He was far too small to have gone alone on the journey. He carried no phone numbers, and when she inquired about his whereabouts and companions, the child gave her a blank expression in return. Quintana searched his file for more details, but he couldn't find any. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent responded to her request for assistance a few days later with unexpected information—namely, that the boy's father was being held by the federal government.

During their subsequent meeting, the young lamented his seat as Quintana made a call to the correctional facility, connecting his dad with the agent. She told me that the father was quiet at first. At last, we said, "Your child is here." You are audible to him. You are now free to talk. It was evident that his voice was breaking due to incapacity.

The young lad sent out a cry for his dad. Several of Quintana's coworkers ran to her office as they began to sob and scream so loudly at one point.

The man finally became composed enough to speak to Quintana face-to-face. I apologize; who are you? My child is where? He stated they took him in the middle of the night. How do I inform his mother?

Interpretation: The late Jim Dwyer shared with me a term that enabled him to cover the largest events imaginable, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks: The larger, the less. This 30,000-word story, in this instance, starts with a tiny human being—a child who was abandoned by his father. Locating the microcosm, or the tiny world that symbolizes the greater experience, is another well-known tactic. Once more, the plot is energized by dialogue rather than quotes. As readers listen in on that poignant phone call, they are left with a series of questions, including how this came to be. What is going to happen to this kid? Can a father and child ever get back together?

I've read the Pulitzer Prize winners, as I have in the past, in the hopes of finding the outstanding short lead. With the increasing depth of successful stories, the old-fashioned journalism craft has all but vanished. not totally, though. I discovered two in 2023 that need our consideration.

26 years had passed, and we were still waiting.

If voters approved the Miami Heat's request to erect a new arena on public land, it was to be a four-acre gem of a park on Biscayne Bay. The wedge of waterfront property known as Parcel B played a key role in the arena deal's successful 1996 sale to voters.

Another deserving mention goes to Kyle Whitmire, who took home the AL.com Commentary Award. He writes on the history of a racial atrocity that has been forgotten in a now-beautiful Alabama town:

Accompany me. I would want to present to you the appearance of a hole in Alabama history.

According to a representative who spoke with PolitiFact, co-founders own 20%, employees own 20%, and worldwide investors share 60% of parent company ByteDance Ltd.

Thom Shanker covered national security for many years. He imparts some knowledge to the coming generation.

In the days after his Ohio speech, politicians, commentators, and social media users have discussed Trump's "bloodbath" remark.

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