Reference: Writing Leads

Leads Handout

Journalism 1

Writing leads

In the inverted pyramid style of writing, we tell the story by revealing the most important information first and the least important information last.  Therefore, the lead, which is the first sentence of your hard news story, should contain the absolute most important information.  It is imperative that the lead is well written.  The reasons for this are:

•To attract the reader’s attention and to force the reader to read on.

•Since most people read only the lead, yours must tell what happened so that the reader can get the most important information from the lead.

Every hard news story you will write is going to focus on one of two things.  These are:

•Something that happened that is of importance or interest to people.

•Someone who is important or prominent in our society who said or did something important or interesting.

Therefore, if your lead is about something that happened that is important to your readers, you must answer the following questions in your lead:

•What happened that was interesting, significant, unusual or has an impact on the community?

•Who told you what happened (the attribution).

•When did it happen (the time element).

You MUST answer AT LEAST these three questions. If you have room to answer more, then you should try to answer the question that says HOW this event impacts your readers.  Put only the most important elements in the lead.  Put whatever you cannot fit in the lead in the second, third and fourth (if necessary) paragraphs. The idea is not to put everything in the lead; the idea is to put the most important information in the lead.

Avoid burying your leads.  What this means is that you have failed to include the most important information in the first 10 words of your lead OR you have failed to include the most important information anywhere in the lead. If the information is nowhere in the lead, it is usually buried elsewhere in the story. This is not good.  Remember, the summary lead, which is what you are writing, should provide the most important information immediately.  It should NOT keep the reader guessing what happened and it should not tease the reader or tempt the reader to read more of the story.

You need to use your news judgment to determine which of the 5 W’s and the H is most important.  Remember to think of the seven elements of news when you are wondering which of the 5 W’s and H to use in the lead. The seven elements of news tell you the newsworthiness of a story.  Use them to guide you and to help you develop your news judgment.

Summary leads do two things:

•Summarize the story.

•Invite the reader to read the rest of the story.

Putting the most important of the 5 W’s and H into the lead will summarize the story.  Using the strongest possible words will entice the reader.

The trick to writing a summary lead that summarizes AND entices, rather than one that simply wraps up the story, is to continue working on the lead until the best possible combination of words is used.  This means:

•Do NOT go with the first lead you write.  After writing an acceptable lead, rewrite it to improve upon it.  Keep telling yourself that you can make it better and keep working on it until you do.

•Avoid superfluous words.

•Avoid jargon, gobbledygook or other meaningless phrases.

•Write clearly and concisely.

•Use vivid verbs.

•Use colorful words.

BAD LEAD:   Women are likely to be disappointed in their choice of a permanent mate, a study released Tuesday said.

GOOD LEAD: Women want permanent mates who are sensitive, self-assured and warm, but they usually come up cold, a sociologist’s report released Tuesday said.

BAD LEAD: More than 500 students listened to a reverend Tuesday at El Camino College who was speaking in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. at El Camino College.

GOOD LEAD:  If you graduate from college, work hard and are a responsible adult, your dreams will come true, the Rev. Mark Thompson said Tuesday to 500 high school students. 

You must spend some time working on these leads to understand how to write them as you are learning a new skill and a new way of writing. You are also learning a new way of thinking about things, so you need to give yourself permission to take the time needed to really learn how to write in this way.  You must write and rewrite several times. As every writer knows, writing is not so much writing as it is rewriting.

 Good luck!!