In a news story, I would be scared that if I started with a "flat" lead the reader wouldn't go further.
I think that readers of poetry are often delighted to encounter a poem that begins without mystifying them. So many poems challenge the reader in the first few lines. If a poem begins in difficulty, I don't see how it can change its coloration. I suppose all of my poems have the same pattern, that you begin with something rather flat, but the attempt is to put the reader in a multidimensional area in the end.
Gene Myers Interviews Billy Collins