Leads
When journalists talk about
beginnings of stories the word
they use is lead (lede).
Leads are the foundation
of every story.
An effective lead makes a promise
to the reader or viewer:
I have something important,
something interesting, to tell you.
A good lead informs, attracts,
and entices.
Types of Leads
Direct / Summary Leads
Delayed Leads (Variety Leads)
Direct / Summary Leads
The lead answers the pertinent
“W” and “H” questions in a
logical manner without
overwhelming the reader with
details. Less important
information/details are presented
later in the story.
To help you decide on this
theme, sometimes it helps to try
the “tell-a-friend” technique.
Imagine your friend asking,
“What’s your story about?”
Answer that question in one
sentence that captures the
essence of the entire story.
The direct lead (summary lead) is
usually one sentence, but
sometimes two.
It answers immediately, in 25 words
or less, the main questions of who,
what, when and where.
It is the workhorse of daily
journalism, used for most stories.
WhoWhatWhenWhereWhy
Swimming was prohibited at Sunny
Isles Beach Monday after a
dangerous amount of bacteria was
found in the water last week. MiamiDade County health officials declared
the Atlantic Ocean off limits because
ingesting the water can make people,
particularly children, sick.
The basic news lead
A 16-year-old was
arrested in the
robbery and beating
death of an 88-yearold veteran from
Spokane, Wash.,
who survived being
wounded in World
War II.
•
•
•
•
Who: A 16-year-old
What: Was arrested
When: ??
Where: Spokane,
Wash.
• Why: robbing and
beating an 88-yearold veteran to death
• How: ??
The second paragraph
A second male teen
was still being sought
in the murder of
Delbert "Shorty"
Belton, a retired
aluminum company
worker who was
brutally attacked in the
parking lot of his lodge
Wednesday night and
died the following
morning.
•
•
•
•
Who: a second teen
What: being sought
When: Wednesday
Where: in the
parking lot of Delbert
“Shorty” Belton’s
lodge
• Why: murder
• How: a brutal attack
The third paragraph
“These are two
individuals who for
whatever reason went
out on a given night to
rob someone,”
Spokane Police Chief
Frank Straub said.
“They robbed him, they
beat him and they killed
him.”
• This is an
emphasis
paragraph. It
uses a quote to
introduce the
emotion of the
event.
The fourth paragraph
• Additional information
Charges of firstis provided in
degree murder and
descending order of
first-degree robbery
importance. This is
were pending against
called the “inverted
the suspect in custody.
pyramid” style of
Straub said police
news writing.
were closing in on the
second and urged him
to surrender.
The WHO Lead
If the who is a person, place or thing well
known, it is the feature of the lead. The name
alone attracts attention. Unless one of the
other W’s or H is particularly outstanding, the
“big name” or who comes first.
John T. King, Secretary of Defense, was
critically injured in a car accident at Fourth
Street and Flowers Avenue yesterday morning.
The WHAT Lead
If the lead concerns a person of lesser
importance, or if the situation overshadows
the people involved, leads feature the what.
A head-on collision between a school bus
and a taxi cab at Fourth Street and Flowers
Avenue sent the taxi driver to the hospital
yesterday.
The WHEN Lead
Rarely is the time the most interesting or
important feature. However, circumstances
may make the when significant.
Just 15 minutes after police posted a
“DANGER” sign at Fourth Street and Flowers
Avenue, Al Rogers was hurt in a car accident
at the intersection.
The WHERE Lead
On rare occasions, the where is significant
enough to overshadow the other W’s.
The intersection of Fourth Street and Flowers
Avenue, often referred to as “Bloody
Corners,” was the scene of another serious
car accident yesterday.
The HOW Lead
The method by which something is happens or
the how is sometimes significant enough to
begin the lead.
Thrown through his windshield and into an
open man-hole when his car hit a traffic barrier,
John Bends was hurt this morning at Fourth
Street and Flowers Avenue.
The WHY Lead
The motive or cause of an event is sometimes
the most important feature.
Haste to get to the bedside of his dying
mother sent Burt Olds to Mercy Hospital in
critical condition yesterday. Police said his
Pontiac Sunfire crashed into the rear of
another car at Fourth Street and Flowers
Avenue.
What’s most important?
• Start with the most important thing in the
story.
• Usually that’s the WHO or the WHAT.
• Rarely – almost never – is it the WHERE
or the WHEN.
• Sometimes, particularly in follow-up stories,
the WHY or the HOW may be the most
important way to start.
Please don’t start like this:
At 1:15 p.m. Wednesday in the gym at Sun
Valley Vista High School in Westchester,
Ariz., five students were seriously injured
when a jump shot by Brandon McGee
shattered the backboard, causing glass to
rain down on the unsuspecting teens.
How many things can you find wrong
with this lead?
How about this instead?
Five students were hurt when star basketball
player Brandon McGee slammed the
backboard during fifth period on Wednesday,
causing it to shatter before the students
could move out of the way.
Find some tweets
Twitter often use the 5W’s effectively.
Your Assignment:
Follow a news organization such as local media, CNN, The
New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, Al-Jazeera,
Huffington Post.
Choose three tweets from news organizations about
today’s news that you think use the 5W’s effectively.
Your Assignment
• Write the three tweets you chose.
• For each one, complete this list:
• Who:
• What:
• Why:
• When:
• Where:
• How:
• Answer: How many of the 5W’s and H did the tweets
contain? Which of the 5W’s came first most often?
Delayed Leads
Delayed leads start with a little
something to catch the reader's
attention and delay the real stuff of
leads -- the 5W's, the message and
the angle.
It usually sets a scene or evokes a
mood with an incident, anecdote or
example. The writer may
foreshadow events to come or
create a sense of foreboding or
anticipated surprise. Essential
information is temporarily withheld.
The delayed lead can be short,
perhaps two sentences, or it can be
longer, up to four paragraphs.
But, it still must fulfill the two roles
of the lead:
1) capture the essence of the story
2) encourage the reader to continue
If you ask the reader to wait before
he learns what the story is about,
reward him with a clear statement
of purpose, called a nut graph.
The “nut graf” is a paragraph
following the attention-grabber that
does the heavy lifting. The “nut
graf” supplies the 5W’s & the angle.
Anecdotal Leads
-has beginning, middle & end/a mini story
symbolic of the whole story being told
A year ago, Melanie Fischer, a lifelong
Californian, was not entirely sure where
Arkansas was. So when her husband
proposed that they consider moving there,
she raced to locate the state on a map
printed on her children's placemats.
Narrative Leads
-drops reader right into action
Chris is grinning with satisfaction as her
computer screen erupts in noisy celebration.
It's the same happy look she used to wear
when she wiped out a nest of electro-villains,
in those video games she used to play. But
today the challenge is algebra.
Scene-Setter Leads
-device borrowed from fiction, for long features,
gives sights, sounds, and smells
In a dimly lit back room on the second level
of the University of Michigan library’s bookshelving department, Courtney Mitchel
helped a giant desktop machine digest a rare,
centuries-old Bible.
Wordplay Lead
-amusing, makes use of pun, alliteration etc.
Western High’s trash collectors have been down in
the dumps lately.
In Michael Crichton’s, Jurassic Park, an island has
been transformed into a pre-historic zoo of
dinosaurs brought to life by a group of scientists
who have been cloning around.
Roundup Leads
-rather focusing on one person, place or thing,
includes a longer list
Whenever sixth-grader Vasil Evanoff has a day off from
school, he hops into a Cessna 152 and takes to the skies.
On weekends, Sue Sumner likes to fly her grandson
around the Valley, just to see the sights.
There's a special restaurant that funeral director Lincoln
Ragsdale Jr. likes to visit for breakfast, but it's 115 miles
away from home. He climbs in his Beech Bonanza A-36,
and an hour later, he's eating pancakes in Sedona.
They are among the growing numbers of Arizonans
piloting small airplanes.
Startling Statement /Punch
-to grab attention; a series of jerky, exciting
phrases, separated by dashes or dots, used if the
facts of the story justify it.
Midnight on the bridge . . . a scream . . . a shot . . .a
splash . . . a second shot. This morning, police
recovered the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Murphy
from the Snake River. A bullet wound was found in
the temple of each.
Contrast/Irony
-shows contrast in real life situations
His wealth is estimated at $600 million. He
controls a handful of corporations, operating
in more than 20 nations. Yet he carries his
lunch to work in a brown paper bag and
wears the latest fashions from Target.
Some Great Leads
College students are notorious for
being broke, but some have found
a way to keep cash in their pockets
while “working” less than four hours
a week. By donating plasma twice a
week for 52 weeks, a student can
earn $2,600 a year.
ORILLIA, Ontario-A Jordanian
asked him to pray for peace. A
young woman from the Bronx told
him about living in New York
during the attacks of Sept. 11. A
Kenyan performed a native
dance.
Cassandra “Casey” Williamson, a 6year-old who liked to sing and ride
her bike, would have started first
grade next month. Johnny A.
Johnson, 24, was on probation for
being a thief and a burglar.
JACKSON, MISS. -- When it rains,
it pours: a pre-game downpour
welcomed the Saints onto the field,
followed by a shower of yellow
flags that wouldn’t let them leave.
SOMERSET, Pa.-The water
reached their shoulders, then their
necks. They ducked underwater,
looking for a way to escape. Finally
they found high ground. They
stopped and turned. A new wall of
water was bearing down on them.
If they’re lucky, most people
figure out what they want to do
for a living sometime in their
mid-20s, but the decision to
become a nurse came, well,
early to Andrea Early.
Snow, followed by small boys on
sleds.
A healthy 17-year-old heart
pumped the gift of life through 34year-old Bruce Murray Friday,
following a four-hour transplant
operation that doctors said went
without a hitch.
SAN QUENTIN—In the end,
Robert Alton Harris seemed
determined to go peacefully, a trait
that had eluded him in the 39
violent and abusive years he
spent on earth.
In the chilly night air, a tear streamed
down. It slowly traveled, carving its way
along the contour of his face, stopping at
certain points, gaining momentum, then
pooling at the end of his chin,
threatening to drop at any moment. He
brushed it away with the back of his
hand. It was over.
Everyone has had the naked
dream. You know, the dream where
you show up to school with nothing
on, and everyone stares and asks
what happened to your clothes.
LONDON — Rupert Murdoch’s
flagship British tabloid proved
Friday that there is, in fact,
nowhere the Sun doesn’t shine.