How to write news leads

There are two basic kinds of news leads in journalism: 1) Direct news leads, and 2)  delayed or feature leads.

Direct news lead:  A direct lead provides a quick summary of information. It uses the 5Ws of news: Who, what, where, when, why.  For example:

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military on Saturday shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it crossed  sensitive military sites across North America.

Be sure to:

  1. Put the most important information (usually WHAT)  first
  2.  Stick to the facts and avoid opinion
  3. Use AP style and proper quote structure

Delayed feature lead:  Delayed leads provide insight, education, atmosphere, description and sometimes entertainment.  This one is scene-setting.  (Other feature leads might be narrative or anecdotal or first person or zingers).

Sept. 12, 2014. By Mike Gangloff,  The Roanoke Times
BLACKSBURG — All week the instruments came into LewisGale Hospital Montgomery — fiddles and  banjos, guitars and mandolins, a lap dulcimer and an accordion and a bass, a triangle and a washboard and a set of bones.

Up at the end of the fourth floor, in a room with a “High Fall Risk” sign on the door, the music carried on day and night. It would pause for a few hours, then burst out again as new players arrived: A days-long medley of old, traditional mountain tunes, Cajun waltzes and country two-steps, with a few hymns and a choogling acoustic rocker or two thrown in.
Bill Richardson was dying, and he’d invited all the musicians he’d touched in decades of playing and  organizing to come help him through it.

The lead (lede ) is everything, says Hannah Bloch.  “The lead’s job is to make the reader want to stay and spend some precious time with whatever you’ve written. It sets the tone and pace and direction for everything that follows. It is the puzzle piece on which the rest of the story depends. To that end, please write your lead first — don’t undermine it by going back and thinking of one to slap on after you’ve finished writing the rest of the story.”

MORE ABOUT WRITING LEADS