A retired man was very badly burned, yesterday, from a fire in his house that did not have a smoke detector. Robert Kent was rescued from his burning San Jose home.
Kent had second and third-degree burns on half of his body after being found unconscious on the kitchen floor, surrounded by flames. In his single-story home on Annapolis Way the fire began in the kitchen and spread to the attic. The fire was reported around 3 p.m.
Firefighters rescued Kent from his smoke-filled house. There was no smoke detection system in the building. He is currently in grave condition at Valley Medical Center.
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ReplyDeleteThis might work for broadcast, where you use a soft opening to get people's attention before you launch into the news ... but it doesn't work for print/online news.
ReplyDeleteMake it past tense. Make your lead summarize what happened, then tell the rest of the story in descending order of importance (inverted pyramid format).
10.5/15 Please revise and republish.
Better, but whether or not Kent had a smoke detector is not the most important news -- so it doesn't belong in the lead.
ReplyDeleteHow about the fact that he was unconscious and had to be rescued by firemen from his burning home? That's more interesting and newsworthy.
10.5+1.5=12/15
Oh, I see. Haha, I just thought that it was interesting news that he didn't have a smoke alarm. I thought that created a moral for the story to add to the heroics.
ReplyDeleteThe moral is: Get a smoke alarm or you could die. Personally, I didn't think that firefighters saving someone from a fire is exciting news. They do it for a living.
But I think both ways make sense. Thanks for the tips and the extra 1.5 points!