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The Lead
Here is the structure of the beginning:
Attention-getterXXXXX
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Committal statementX
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Hook the reader with the opening of the editorial. Perhaps
an anecdote will do the trick. Or a shocking statement. The narrative works
well. Maybe a direct dialogue directed to the reader will be effective.
Whatever your approach, remember to be accurate and specific. Once the
reader is firmly with you, indicate your topic and commit to your stance.
Here is an example of an effective lead and committal statement from award-winning
editorial writer Richard Aregood of the Philadelphia Daily News:
"Punish crime
— not ideas"
People who have never had an idea tend to have
the same response whenever they're confronted by something they don't
like.
They blame ideas.
In this era of pinhead reasoning, a cottage industry has arisen. Stern
censors, ablaze with the same righteous fervor such people have always
had, have taken on new protective coloration. Many are masquerading as
feminist scholars, especially in law schools. Possessed with the quaint
notion that you can eliminate crime by preventing people from thinking
about it, they have come up with a seemingly endless series of censorship
schemes, each pretending to somehow protect women. Predictably enough,
they have found allies among anti-feminist, male, right-wing politicians,
who have never met an idea they wouldn't censor.
Their current hobby horse is Senate Bill 1521, the "Pornography Victims'
Compensation Act," which would allow victims of sex crimes to sue
publishers for damages in civil court. There would not be any need to
prove a crime in criminal court, just a series of vague requirements that
plaintiffs show that material published or sold was a "substantial
cause" of the not-necessarily-proven crime.
Before you get any weird ideas, this is not an attempt
to justify sex crimes, crimes against children or crimes of violence.
People who do such crimes should be as severely punished as the law allows.
But they should be punished, not some publisher who's reprinted Faulkner
and is now confronted with an allegation that reading a book inspired
some creep to do something loathsome. . . .
The hook is the narrative about people getting upset
with ideas. The topic is revealed in the paragraph about Senate Bill 1521,
and the committal is given in the implication that punishing ideas, rather
than criminals, is a misdirected effort.
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