Starting To Write: The Lead
The lead, or opening paragraph, is the most important part of a news story.
In a single paragraph, a lead must summarize the basic facts of a story and convey to a reader what you found out in your reporting. But it must be more than just an opening to your story. The lead must also catch a reader"s or listener"s attention and make them want to read the rest of your story.
And that makes the lead the hardest part of a news story to write. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula to tell you how to write a perfect lead. If it"s any consolation, you are in good company because any experienced writer will admit it never gets any easier to write a great lead.
Journalists are taught a simple rule about basic news leads, called the "5-W"s+IH." They are: Who? What? Where? When? Why? And How A sentence or paragraph that gives a reader the answer to all the five W"s & How will automatically summarize any story.
There are many other kinds of news leads, but they all fall into two categories: "hard" leads and "soft" leads. The choice depends on the nature of the story and determines the form of the rest of the story. A hard lead is suited for an urgent, breaking event, while a soft lead is more indirect and suited to feature writing. Any lead must also impart the central idea, or theme, of your story. A good lead, and a good story, needs a newsworthy idea.