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An AP ‘lede’ goes viral
On Twitter early this morning, if you started typing the keywords “fundamental pillar” in the search bar, the phrase popped up after the first three letters: f-u-n.
That’s because of AP’s main post-debate story. White House Correspondent Julie Pace’s lead sentence – or “lede,” as it’s known in news jargon — went viral.
Many tweets of the lede followed. MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow read it on-air:
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy, Donald Trump refused to say Wednesday night that he will accept the results of next month’s election if he loses to Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee declared Trump’s resistance “horrifying.”
“It’s rare — it was a good lede but it basically just went viral,” Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee said.
Quite the AP lede appearing in a thousand newspapers tomorrow morning https://t.co/vuz9x0fGom
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) October 20, 2016
AP leads with just a remarkable dependent clause pic.twitter.com/xROC2mS06V
— Brian Fung (@b_fung) October 20, 2016
How’d Trump do? This is the opening line of AP’s report: “Threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy, Donald Trump…”
— Mike Hills (@mikewhills) October 20, 2016
AP lede: “Threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy, DT refused to say that he will accept accept the results…..’
— Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) October 20, 2016
Intense @AP lede: @realDonaldTrump is “threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy”#debate pic.twitter.com/Q32ZgvMdPy
— lorenzo ferrigno (@lorenzoferrigno) October 20, 2016
This is a fabulous and historic lede. https://t.co/Z1fHpVRvF1
— Brian Moritz (@bpmoritz) October 20, 2016
Need a little refresher on how to write a lede? Here ya go, courtesy of AP’s Julie Pace & Lisa Lerer. https://t.co/qEBRNeL8iA
— jkdossett_NastyWoman (@JKDossett) October 20, 2016
National political reporter Lisa Lerer shared the byline on the story.
That wasn’t the only viral element of the third and final presidential debate. As AP reported, after Trump called Clinton “such a nasty woman,” in the closing moments, the hashtag “nastywoman” was born.