"It was a cold Wednesday, with the wind blowing from the north..."
I'm curious if this is commonplace, and if its native audience find it irksome in the online medium. I can understand this style in print, but very often I click an HN link, and hit back before finishing the first paragraph as it becomes clear the article is not written in the pyramid style.
If it's this opening:
"One Sunday in November 20-year-old Alani Murrieta of Phoenix began to feel sick and left work early."
US articles often intro with things like that, on the premise that it constructs a human narrative aspect to the story that wider audiences prefer, rather than strictly / only focusing on the scientific aspect of it. It's basically an attempt by a scientific publication, to reach a little beyond its core readership and appeal to eg social media click-throughs (one viral uptake on Facebook and they probably triple their audience for a given article).
And by "done poorly" I mean things like, the "story" they're trying to lead off with isn't particularly interesting, and/or has only the most superficial tie-in to the rest of the piece. That's a sign that they tried too hard to graft it on.
So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time.
Title got me, but the answer to "How does the flu actually kill people" isn't going to start with "one sunday in november". I was interested, but not that interested.
When the reality is you feel severely sick because your life is actually threatened.