In the spirit of the season, we’ll take a brief break from carping to offer a small sampling of sparkling prose from recent weeks. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/bright-passages-18/

Gun facts and terminology can be complicated for those not intimately familiar with the topic. But many readers are knowledgeable, and lapses can hurt our credibility with them. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/getting-guns-right/

Most anecdotal ledes are fine in themselves. But the device seems rote and shopworn if a reader encounters one story after another with the same approach. There are many, many ways to start a non-straight-news story; we should look harder for alternatives. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/the-stranger-in-the-lede-2/