The Washington Post had a long article yesterday headlined in the hard copy, “Why do poor boys become jobless men?” (the headline on the jump-page was “Study: Poverty especially harmful to job prospects of boys”). It begins by noting that, while generally and historically men have been more likely to work than women, in some places now there is a “reverse gender gap” and it is men who are less likely to have jobs. And it goes on and on about poverty and race and geography and segregation, dropping a few tantalizing references to “unstable, high-poverty environments” and “family, schools and policy” and a shortage of “male role models” and “child support” — but doesn’t really get to the key point.
The key point is buried, just where you would bury something in a long article if you felt like you sort of had to mention it but didn’t want it to be noticed. You would mention it just once, and it would be near the end — not at the very end, because then someone who wanted to see what the article’s conclusions were might actually read it. And you would put it in the middle of a paragraph, though that isn’t easy since newspaper paragraphs are so short. And you would not even have it be a sentence on its own, but just part of a sentence. That’s where you would reveal that the reverse gender gap “appears only among poor children with unmarried parents . . .”
Washington Post Really Buries the Lede