I've had this idea for a while. I'm sure someone has already done it:
"I wasn't panicked until I saw the building," said Russell Grant, who showed up to take home his 5-year-old son, Justin, after hearing what had happened.
The damage was so severe some witnesses were in disbelief that everyone inside could have walked out. Two people crawled under the beams and wreckage looking for kids, but everyone already was out.
"She may have saved many of these children's lives," the mayor said.
The manager of the day-care center operating inside the building had made everyone get into the section of the building that survived the high winds.
"What I saw was just utter destruction," Slaughter said. "The children were scared, they were cold and dirty. They were crying and upset, but really they were calmer than I thought they would be."
Jon Slaughter, who owns two nearby businesses, arrived at the skate center with two employees about five minutes after the building was ripped apart.
Authorities were unsure whether it was a tornado that hit the skate center about 10:15 a.m.
Several states were battered by the storms, which unleashed tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines. At least one person was killed and several injured. (Watch witnesses describe the storms' fury -- 2:15 Video)
"I'm amazed that anyone got out of there," said Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright.
One child suffered a broken bone and another a cut to the head. But everyone else emerged unharmed from the crumpled wreck of the Fun Zone Skate Center in Montgomery, Alabama. The facility doubled as a day-care facility.
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) -- Lines of powerful thunderstorms pelted the South with heavy wind, rain and hail Wednesday, turning a skating rink into a hulk of twisted metal soon after the 31 preschoolers and four adults inside had fled to the only part of the building that turned out to be safe.
Storm destroys skating rink full of preschoolers
Published without permission, ©CNN.COM
Mantari
I'm a little dense. The pyramid reference may allude to something I'm not familiar with. This appears to be the paragraphs for a news story, in reverse? So the inverted inverted pyramid would be details first, then the big picture?
thursday
november, 16 2006
curt
I saw the footage on CNN this morning. Its amazing they all lived through that.
thursday
november, 16 2006
Andre Torrez
Yeah, Mantari, that's pretty much what it is. Maybe it was a bad example, but I've always wondered if you could turn news stories into thrillers by inverting the inverted pyramid.
thursday
november, 16 2006
Anna Haynes
By the time you get to the end, you can judge pretty objectively whether the headline fits the story.
This should be a Firefox plugin.
thursday
november, 16 2006
David McRaney
I'm a journalism student, and I just wanted you to know there are a myriad of techniques in the business that accomplish what you suggest with this inversion. But, no matter what, it is inadvisable to place the lead and nut graph as the final two paragraphs. I suggest those be chopped up and sprinkled into the story if you want to invert the inverted pyramid.
friday
november, 17 2006
Andrew
David, you're missing the point.
Andre, keep in mind that most of the time, reporters don't write the headlines that accompany their stories.
friday
november, 17 2006
Andrew
Sorry, my second comment should be pointed at Anna. (And isn't meant to be pointed at all.)
friday
november, 17 2006
Mike
It's like the movie Memento, just in my newspaper. Rock on.
monday
november, 20 2006
Emily Sweeney
very cool.
monday
november, 20 2006
Joe Murphy
I used to do this manually with the newspaper -- start at the last paragraph and read backward. Problem with that technique is it's hard to avoid looking at the headline, so you already knew where it was going.
wednesday
november, 22 2006
Ry Rivard
But...long, narrative non-fiction styles have seeped into news writing, making some stories less pyramidal.
And, the pyramid is important for news -- making readers wonder, Why is this important, is never good (nor though is drilling them with phony importance). The problem is, too many readers buy the lead, when, later, caveats and anecdotes show the reporter is burying or exaggerating the story.
sunday
november, 26 2006
jessica
i just want u 2 kno i have a huge crush on u always a forever 561 379 6469
wednesday
march, 19 2008