Well, a lead is the most important thing about the story.

Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that's not working. Just pare it down until it's a beautiful thing you can hand in.

I spent time in, like, criminal courts, and covering murder trials for papers.

Unless you're doing a feature piece, which is going to be longer, and you have more time to get into stuff.

So, yeah, I think it had a major effect. I think in franchising younger people, it was just an idea that's never been trotted out before, but it makes perfectly good sense.

And you can't really cover people critically that you're friends with.

Well, a lead is the most important thing about the story.