Assignment 4 (ledes #2)

More Leads

Homework 4 - Journalism 1

Due:

Write a lead for each of the following.  Use the information as if you had gathered it yourself.  Pretend the information is from your notes.

1. Michael Weiner, a member of the Torrance city council, has been urging the council to impose a citywide phase out of plastic bags, which he says harm the environment.  Weiner says paper sacks are less dangerous to animals and children and they decompose more quickly than plastic.  On Tuesday, the council voted on his proposal.  It stopped short of banning plastic shopping bags, but it voted to encourage grocery and retail stores to eliminate the use of plastic bags.  The council voted 8-0 to encourage people to use paper bags.  Members of the council also asked that the mayor to study a plan that would require the city to phase out its use of plastic garbage bags by 2000. 

 Mark Dickson is 24.  He is a journalism student at El Camino and had just started working as a disc jockey for KECC.  He was shot early today by a man who tried to rob him.  The source of information for this story is EC Sgt. Ed Gropp.  Gropp said that Dickson was playing a record at about 12 p.m. when he heard a knock at the station door.  When he answered the knock, he encountered a man holding what appeared to be a revolver.  The assailant demanded money.  Dickson gave him $2, but refused to give the assailant his wallet.  The man fired the gun once, wounding Dickson in the left arm.  The man fled, leaving the $2 behind.  Dickson was reported in stable condition at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he was scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the bullet.  A search of the campus by police failed to turn up the suspect who fled through the Student Activities Center (where KECC is located) and across campus out onto Crenshaw Blvd.

The woman is 90 years old and lived in Chicago, Illinois. She is unable to care for herself and, for the last 10 years, has lived with a daughter and a son in law in Chicago, Illinois. Yesterday morning, they put her on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona, to live with another daughter. There was no one waiting for her at the airport. Airport officials at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport who called her daughter in Phoenix said the daughter instructed them to “put her on a plane back to Chicago.” The officials called the elderly woman’s relatives in Chicago, and they said they would not take her back because “she’s too hard for us to care for.”  With tears clouding her eyes, the woman responded, “I’m too old, and nobody wants me anymore.” A policewoman agreed to care for the woman until a home is found for her.

The proposal concerns bicycle paths in the county, 100 miles of them. If approved, the proposal would cost a total of $922,266, with $184,454 being spent each year for the next five years. Altogether, the money would be spent to develop 100 miles of bike paths, all of which would be connected with one another for the convenience of cyclists. The county board of supervisors voted unanimously, five to zero, Tuesday to fund the project.  Supervisors said the bike paths are needed to encourage Los Angeles County residents to get out and get more exercise and believed that this expense would ultimately lead to healthier constituents.