Greetings from Finland! 

I was trying to find an interesting hard or feature lede from Finland just for a point of contrast but unfortunately the International Edition of the Helsinki Sanomat (National Newspaper) has gone on holidays.  I found their farewell note on the internet quite amusing.   So much for news being 24/7.  Not in Finland.

“The International Edition will be offline for the whole of the month of July. Yesterday (24.6.) was the last time we updated the daily items before coming back online at the end of July. Weeklies will return shortly after we open up again.

Though there can be exceptions, July is not traditionally a very "hard" news month in Finland, either in politics or in business, as the country, too, is in recess: Finland is more or less "closed" for the duration. While the world will continue to turn, and news will doubtless be made, we hope that on the Finnish front at least it will be possible to enjoy the short Finnish summer in peace and to return refreshed in late July and August"

As a second alternative I thought I would venture to the Australian media.  "The Australian" newspaper is probably one of the most reputed in the country but this article had a surprisingly bad hard lede.  I know Angelia asked for good examples but bad can sometimes be just as illustrative. 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25709614-2703,00.html

 

US won't use tariffs to change climate

BARACK Obama has warned against the US imposing trade penalties on countries that decline to limit carbon emissions, after a late amendment was added to climate change legislation approved by the House of Representatives.

Even after reading this sentence 5 times I’m not sure what it means or that it’s even grammatically correct. 

 For a good feature lede you can’t go past the New York Times.  It’s seems to be their specialty given their magazine style appeal.  To find a good lede I turned to the most popular story “ Frugal Paris”

 http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/travel/28frugalparis.html?em

”WELL before midsummer, the sun sets late over Paris. Even at 9 p.m., you can sit on the banks of the Canal St.-Martin in the 10th Arrondissement, and see in the still water the reflection of the sky, a blue mottled with thin clouds, and the low pale buildings with their amber lights just turned on, and the ruffled, fractal edge of the trees in full green bloom. Night seems as if it will never come.”

 

Although I like the article overall and thought it was well researched and interesting I found the lede (above bold) indulgent.    I would be interested in other people’s opinions because here is an article that is voted most popular and yet I would be turned off by this first paragraph.  Is it just a matter of great topic choice or have I been looking at news ledes too long?

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