News Reporting and Writing Types of Leads

The following are examples of the basic types of leads that can be used for news stories: Hard news lead This type of lead gives just the details in a straight-forward way.

Student senators will vote Tuesday on a $200,000 amendment to their constitution. Immediate-Identification lead

This type of lead focuses on the person who the action is happening to, not the action. In these types of stories it is the person being talked about who is the most important detail.

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean rallied young

people Saturday, telling them they have made the difference in his campaign. Delayed-Identification lead

This type of lead tells the reader who the story is about in a delayed way. These leads usually are done when the person has a long title or it is not important to say immediately the person’s name because nobody knows them anyway.

A woman who refused to show up for jury duty was arrested

Friday and given a civics lesson about the importance of service to her community and the judicial system.

NOTE: The woman likely would be identified in the next graph. The point is that what she did really is more important than who she is. Summary (news) lead

This type of lead gives an overview of what happened without giving any specifics.

What started as an effort to beautify six neighborhoods has developed into a coalition of neighborhood associations working toward a common goal - to lure and develop new businesses in their area. Multiple-element lead

This type of lead tells the reader about more than one thing in a simple, kind of summary way.

School board members agreed Monday to decrease pay for

certified and support staff, cut administrative salaries and limit summer office hours to reduce operational costs. Feature (soft or second-day) lead

This type of lead gives the news in a more interesting, non-timely way.

A few days back, Dusty Dvoracek decided to get a haircut. Nothing severe, just a trim. But he wanted to do something

— anything — to change the Oklahoma Sooners’ fortunes.