Leads and other considerations
| Story Structure |
| Inverted pyramid (newspaper) vs. pyramid (broadcast) |
| All the essential facts up front (5 Ws) vs. generating interest (~2Ws) |
| Longer sentences vs. shorter sentences. |
| Formal style vs. informal style (conversational) |
| Freshening/Updating the story |
| Update the story to focus on the most current development |
|
Localizing the story |
| Taking a national/international story and developing it with a local tie-in. |
|
| Leads |
1. Summary lead |
|
|
|
| Ex. Minneapolis may be without fire protection by 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. |
| Often the summary lead could be eliminated without weakening the story's essential meaning. |
Ex. The second sentence for the fire protection story might be: |
This second sentence could actually serve as the lead. But, does it generate as much interest as the summary lead? A crucial question given today's news environment. |
| 2. Hard news lead |
| for breaking news |
| for updating an ongoing story |
| more specific |
| gets to the heart of the story |
| often information that the story can't do without |
| more of a 5W's newspaper approach |
| Ex. In Loughville, 15 firefighters were injured today and 605 persons were left homeless in the city's biggest fire in eight years. |
|
| Summary leads can be contrasted with hard news leads. |
| Ex. Hard news: At least 40 communities in western New Mexico are threatened by radioactivity that escaped late today from a nuclear generating plant near Acapulco. |
| Ex. Summary: Officials are keeping a close eye on a potentially dangerous situation in western New Mexico this afternoon. |
| Which do you prefer? Why? |
| 3. Soft news lead |
| for features |
| for analyses |
| to give perspective |
| to attribute value |
| a) suspended lead |
| delaying the climax or punch line of the story |
| Ex. A St. Paul man couldn't figure out why thieves broke into his house 2 nights ago and took all his CD's, but left his expensive stereo… |
| Last night, thieves returned and stole the stereo. |
| b) question lead |
| good for issues that generate debate or interest |
| brings the "you" of the viewer into the story |
| Ex. Would you pay $500 for a chance to go to the moon? |
| c) freak events lead |
| emphasize the unusual up front to generate interest |
| Ex. Three thousand frogs invade Fridley, MN. |
| d) staccato lead |
| sets a tone |
| phrasing that tells the story |
| adds emphasis, drama |
| Ex. Grit … determination … desire. Words that describe a local woman, 42, who finished the Twin Cities marathon yesterday. |
| e) well-known expressions lead/literary allusion lead/parody lead |
| can also be a play on words or a new working on a well known phrase |
| make sure you know your audience |
|
| Ex. It's JUDGEment day as Aaron Judge hits homer number 62. |
| from "the classics" |
| Ex. A penny saved is a penny earned. A local boy, 11-year-old John Smith, cashed in nearly 700,000 pennies at a local bank today. |
| from popular culture |
| Ex. What's up doc? A local dentist set a new record for pole sitting today. |
| Ex. Are you pondering what I'm pondering? Local residents are asking that question after the city council voted to search for life on Mars in order to solve its transportation problem |
| 4. Headline leads (for hard or soft news) |
| tightening or shortening the lead to read more like a headline. It usually involves eliminating the "to be" conjugation. |
| Ex. 14 dead in plane crash. |
| instead of 14 people are dead in a plane crash. |