Fun with L.A. Times writing cliches

Former LAT feature writer Roy Rivenburg zings a few parody arrows at the paper's current word stylists (and editors) over at his creation, Not the Los Angeles Times. It seems he finally read one too many ledes that begin with the weather or time of day. Excerpt:

By one estimate, 38% of all Times articles now begin with a time or weather reference (click here for more examples). In focus groups, readers never tire of the formula.

"I'm always blown away by narratives that start with the ambient temperature," says Terry Kelvin, a 39-year-old attorney from Torrance. "I also like celebrity profiles that lead with a description of the person nibbling salad at some chic restaurant."

Subscriber Cassie O'Malley prefers clock-based introductions. "If I don't find out the time of day in the first sentence, I stop reading," she says.

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Times innovation chief Lee Abrams was awestruck. "The one-two punch of temperature and time juxtaposed with the thrilling action sequence of someone parking a car sent chills down my spine," he said. "Under Sam Zell, the paper continues to break new ground in storytelling."

All of the examples he provides actually ran in the paper. I'm still getting over that the paper for several hours yesterday referred to the "familial" DNA testing being lauded in the Grim Sleeper case as "familiar" testing.

Piling on: Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly's news blog calls timeout for a little rant about the Times' website, posting "All you have to do is look at its site, where linking out to other sources is often taboo, and stories are almost always written as if they were discovered in a vacuum and delivered from Moses on the mountaintop. "