SOME NOTES ON THE FINAL
You need to read the first story thoroughly and determine who the "players" are. Take heed that the story can become an alphabet soup of abbreviations. For headline purposes, only H-GAC is well known enough to stand without explanation. Feel free to use some of this information in the story. Here is a guide to deciphering the players:
--The H-GAC is an advisory group whose members are elected officials (from city councils, commissioners courts, school boards etc.) from Harris and Galveston counties. The H-GAC acts as a review board of sorts for various federal and state grant monies. It determines what agencies will get money, how much they will get and whether a funding request is worthwhile. The H-GAC is comprised of several committees that study funding requests; those committees make a recommendation yea or nay and then the Executive Committee makes the final decision on whether the request is approved.
However, some funding requests can still be granted despite H-GAC disapproval. Many federal and state agencies have "discretionary" accounts that allow them to provide money as they see fit. It's usually good business (and politics) to follow what the local folks recommend, but the feds don't have to. That is what happened in Story No. 1.
--The LEAA is a federal agency that provides funds, equipment, training and other services to law enforcement agencies on the local, regional and state level and to private groups involved in law enforcement.
--The APG is public interest / police watchdog group seeking LEAA funds. The group's stated purpose is to improve community relations between the public and police. The APG received funding in its first year of operation despite a disapproval from the H-GAC folks. The APG made an end run around the H-GAC that year (which irked H-GAC mightily) and may be able to do so again, setting up the cat fight present in this story.
The Orange Juice Bandit story is a second-day story. It is a folo to the arrest of the suspect, Michael Monroe. So avoid headlines with a first-day news angle.
FOR BOTH STORIES -- Remember all those good things we've talked about this semester concerning accuracy, clarity, tightness, grammar, spelling, libel and all the rest. After you finish, look over the two stories one last time since they account for the bulk of your test score. If you have additional questions to pose to the imaginary reporter, write them at the end of the respective story.
LEDES -- If you don't think a lede should be changed, simply mark it OK.
HEDS -- You must do six out of the eight heads given to gain a possible score of 100. If you write heads on all eight stories, you will be given extra credit.