Kevin Allman blogs on a practice creeping into American journalism that I would suspect has come directly from television news:

I was having dinner with a group that included a few journalists when the topic turned to “featurizing” hard news – the increasingly common practice of burying the lede under “human interest” details in hopes of grabbing the reader’s eye.

I’m not sure I share his disapproval but when it’s done badly, it can really come off the rails.