How We Decide What Leads

How do we decide what leads our news? It's often a dilemma. Is it the crime story that has great pictures, but little real impact on our viewers? Is it the story about a Commission vote that has lousy pictures but impacts a great number of County residents? Is it a sports story that has huge local interest?

All these options are dealt with on a daily basis by our newsroom.

Tonight we decided to lead with the Lady Vols loss to North Carolina. Some argue that sports stories should never lead a newscast. Most of the time, I would agree. But the University of Tennessee is a major player in the region. And when you consider that tonight's game drew a national audience, and that the Lady Vols are part of an economic juggernaut that brings millions of dollars into the Knoxville region, that makes tonight's game a big story.

And let's not forget the pure emotional drama of the situation. These young ladies playing in the toughest bracket in the NCAA tournament. Playing not just the number one seed, but the number one team in the nation. We've followed their ups and downs all year. Like the men's team, we lived and died by every point made or missed.

I thought we made the right decision. It was the right lead.

But I'm sure somebody will second guess us. I guess we could've lead with the crime story.. We had several. We even had a story about a failed effort to cap medical malpractice by some local doctors.

How do we decide what to lead with? It's not exactly a science.