3. What’s in a lead?
Bait to the story
Leads the reader to read along
Reporter/writer’s promise to the reader
4. What is a story lead?
Opening paragraph or two of the story.
Summarizes the story
Elaborates the headline
5. Types of leads
Hard News Story
Full summary of the news report
Almost all of the 5 ‘Ws’ answered (who, what, when,
where & why)
6. Types of leads
Hard News Story
Homeless youth marched down Yonge St. in
downtown Toronto Wednesday afternoon demanding
the municipal government provide emergency shelter
during the winter months.
7. Types of leads
Hard News Story
Already battered by high inflation, the government faced a fresh
problem on Wednesday -a possible industrial slowdown, barely a
month before it presents the Union budget. A widely watched
factory output barometer, released Wednesday, showed
industrial growth was 2.7% in November last year, its slowest
pace in 18 months, and a sharp decline from 11.3% in the previous
month.
Following Tuesday's meeting on prices called by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee,
agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, chief economic adviser
Kaushik Basu and cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar
brainstormed throughout Wednesday to firm up a strategy to
fight rising prices.
8. Types of leads
Hard News Story
Tension between the Congress and its ally, the
Nationalist Congress Party, briefly flared up on
Wednesday following a statement by Rahul Gandhi
where he appeared to blame agriculture minister
Sharad Pawar for the current surge in food prices.
However, by the end of the day, the two parties were
able to defuse the situation.
9. Types of leads
Hard News Story
It could well be Adarsh-2. A recent internal army inquiry
has raised serious questions over yet another land deal in
Mumbai. The defence ministry, sources say, may subject the
deal to an independent probe, possibly by the Central
Bureau of Investigation.
The controversy relates to a one-acre prime plot in Malad,
leased by the army from the Maharashtra government and
occupied by the Central Ordnance Depot (COD) since
1942.
10. Types of leads
Soft Story
News Features
Features
Profiles
Interviews
11. Types of leads
Soft Story
Interviews
In Q&A
Feature
12. Types of leads
Soft Story
For the man behind the Indo-US nuclear deal the habits of
professional discretion die hard Ronen Sen, I was told,
was too much the diplomat to talk freely. I was hoping
retirement would loosen a tongue that had committed just
one indiscretion in a remarkable 43-year career, for which
he was unfairly censured by the Parliamentary Privileges
Committee. I hesitated to approach him, since that
“headless chicken” descriptor was, as he has explained ad
nauseum, targeted at journalists, not touchy
parliamentarians. But he agreed and selected House of
Ming in Taj Mahal hotel, less for its cuisine – reliably
Indian Chinese – than its central location, writes Kanika
Datta.
13. Types of leads
Soft Story
Presents the subject of the story by allusion
14. Types of leads
Technology makes sure that you remember everything that is
important to you. Be it that Monday meeting at work, the 60th
birthday of your mother-in-law, the wedding anniversary of your best
friend or the last day of sales at Zara, your cellphone, iPhone or iPad
will buzz you before it gets too late. In the presence of such fast and
reliable digital reminders, wall calendars would have been rendered
useless, if not for their timely aesthetic makeover as object d' art.
No-show, no-frill calendars that displayed dates in big black fonts have
fallen out of favour. The melting gossamer looks of Angela Johnsson,
the long legs of Laxmi Menon or the six-pack abs of hunky firemen
from the New York fire department are the new calendar must-haves
instead. Calendars have become extensions of brands and represent a
certain class and status.
15. Types of leads
If you are a cricket aficionado and if you are in Cape Town, then you
cannot miss being enveloped with a sense of Jacques Kallis. More so, if
you are on assignment, covering the final Test at Newlands where he
loomed large with a superhuman effort, a century in both innings while
often hobbling with pain.
This is the city where Kallis was born, went to school, learnt his cricket
and blossomed into the giant that he is today. Cape Town today is
proud to call him one of its greatest sons. Wynberg Boys' High, the
school Kallis went to, has named its oval after him. The Jacques Kallis
Scholarship Foundation provides wings to the imagination of young
cricketers of the area. To show solidarity with the city, Kallis has 1, 872
runs in 18 Tests at this ground, returning the complements in the best
way possible.
