Is this what people want in a news story?

[Oeditpus Rex]

Maybe it's me. I've been out of the newsroom for 3 1/2 years, and maybe things have changed — or maybe they changed longer ago and I just didn't keep up with the trend.

If I'm out of step, I want to know it, so tell me — is this how you'd prefer a story like this?

The thunk-thunk of low-flying helicopter rotors jostled Roberta Carreiro out of a sound sleep in Sunday's wee hours. Below her tidy, ranch-style home, Highway 152 wound its way toward a grisly crash, miles down the road where three people - two elderly women and a 2-year-old boy - lay dead, partially ejected from their minivan. None were wearing seatbelts.

It was, she said, a sadly familiar sound.

Since she moved here less than a year ago, Carreiro has woken several times to blaring sirens and hovering choppers plucking victims from the road's treacherous curves. Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage calls it a death trap, a serpentine two-lane highway that links Gilroy to Los Banos and beyond. Two months ago, a big-rig collision halted traffic on the artery for more than 30 hours. In December of 2005 an SUV and a delivery truck collided head-on, killing four members of a family.

Sunday, a minivan packed with eight passengers, some buckled, some not, veered across the rain-soaked road and flipped into a ditch east of Lovers Lane. Consuelo Manzo, 66, and 2-year-old John Venegas, both of Palo Alto, and 75-year-old Carmen Garcia Valencia, of Michoacan, Mexico, died at the scene. None wore seat belts. The driver, 24-year-old Juan Manzo, suffered minor injuries. He was the only victim who was buckled in when the car skidded off the road and overturned shortly after 2am. The relationship between the eight was unavailable at press time. The accident is under investigation.

More here, if you want: http://www.freelancenews.com/news/contentview.asp?c=200386

[Connonym]

1. You can't see this but I'm looking at you uncomprehendingly

like a cow at a passing train

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. LOL!

Great visual. :rofl:

[Connonym]

4. I'm so totally lame that I got my Don Henley songs mixed up!

I was thinking that line was from Dirty Laundry but it's not. I feel like a right git. I still like that line though.

[skygazer]

3. Sounds like an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton contest

Overblown and melodramatic.

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. Thank you

I would've made the same point by writing, "It was the second multiple-fatality accident along the 13-mile stretch of Highway 152 in the last 12 months."

This reminded me of when I sent a freshman reporter in college to cover a rodeo. (We had one of the top college rodeo teams in the country.) Her story began, "The bull stamped and snorted..."