Transcript Writing News Leads - Harding Charter Preparatory High School

WRITING NEWS LEADS
Begin at the beginning
What is a lead?
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The first words of a story, typically less than 40
Veteran reporters think the lead is the most
important; at the very least, it is pivotal in the goal
of achieving high readership of a story
Kind of like a news story thesis statement
Often contains several of the 5W’s and H
The Inverted Pyramid
Inverted Pyramid Lead
Ex:
Two seniors hold voting seats on the School
Council, Lee’s largest governing body.
SGA president Patricia Lopez and SGA
member Alison Douglass attend weekly council
meetings after school and vote equally with
other members.
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Explanation
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The most important information – 2 students serve
on an important, decision-making council – is in the
lead
Next most important information – names of those
two students – is in the second paragraph
What happened and who was involved is covered
in the first two paragraphs
Other, less important information is used to further
describe what happened through “voices” of those
involved (not shown)
News summary lead
The news summary lead gets readers immediately to
the main point of the article. It gives structure to the
rest of the story.
1.
What happened? What will happen next?
2.
Who was involved?
3.
Where did it happen?
4.
When did it happen?
5.
Why did it happen?
6.
How did it happen?
It helps if a reporter organizes notes in an informal
outline form, writing these six questions and
answering them. Once you have that, a summary
lead is easy to write.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with What:
A meeting is to be held with administrators and
parents today to discuss the switch from selling
Coke to Pepsi on campus. The transition was made
in compliance with a contract change that took
effect this year.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with Who:
Area students now have the opportunity to receive
high school credit by using the internet.
The program offering the credit is called Virtual High
School. It allows students to choose from more than
105 semester and year-long classes.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with where:
Nevada is getting its first taste of the impact of
charter schools with the opening of the I Can Do
Anything High School in Washoe County. Charter
schools offer alternatives to traditional schools,
although they are funded through the public school
system.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with when:
April 20, the nation watched in horror as students in
Littleton, Colorado, fled their blood stained Columbine
High School.
April 21, two incidents at LHS involving threats prompted
school officials to intervene, although principal Vince
Barra said the Littleton incident was not the reason.
*The when is the weakest of the 5W’s and H to use. Please avoid if possible, unless the date
is somehow the most important information.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with why (infinitive):
To look for suggestions to improve the outlook of the
community, a public meeting May 10 at Naperville
North High School will discuss the results of the
Search Institute Profiles of Student Life.
Summary lead examples
Ex summary lead starting with how (present participle):
Rejecting an appeal to a school’s expanded drug
testing program, the Supreme Court ruled last
month that schools have the power to extend drug
tests to all students involved in extracurricular
activities.
The modified news lead and the nut
graph
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Over the years, reporters have started to get
creative with leads in order to keep readers
interested
Leads are often less direct and less “formulaic” than
the traditional news summary lead
The most obvious way to do this is to use only the
feature fact or two of the 5W’s and H in the lead
Delay an answer and create a “hook” to entice the
audience to read more
The modified news summary lead
Ex:
After taking her junior year off from the tennis team,
Kari Olsen (12) is back as the number one singles
player on the varsity team.
She took the year off to concentrate on her own
individual game and earn herself a twelfth place
ranking in Southern California.
Since returning, she has helped the Falcons to another
CIF team title.
The modified news lead
Ex:
With last year’s state championship still fresh in its
mind, the boys’ volleyball team began its season
hungry for a second helping.
After losing seven seniors to graduation last year, the
team enters the season unranked. But after several
early victories, the boys earned a number 7 ranking
from the Chicago Tribune.
Nut graph
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The nut graph is the follow-up paragraph that is
more of a conventional summary lead of the main
fact of the story.
It answers the reader’s most important questions.
Nut graph examples
Ex nut graph following anecdotal lead
Growing up playing football in the backyards, going to
Memorial Stadium, or listening to Kent Pavelka on the
radio or Keith Jackson on ABC, many dreamed of
wearing that red “N” on their helmets or being the next
Tommie Frazier or Ricky Williams. As people get older,
however, those dreams start to fade away.
On Feb. 3, that dream became a reality for four
Southeast football players as seniors Chris Loos, Ty
Gifford, Sean Blue and Brandt Bacus all signed up to
play football for either Division I or II schools next fall.
Tips for writing the news lead
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Handout!
The vignette Lead
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Brief anecdotal lead
Used for reports on social, economic, political,
environmental and other major issues
Brings stories to a human or personal level
Writer returns to a more conventional newswriting
form to present hard news facts and opinions after
the lead
The vignette lead, con’t
Usually there is a combination of two methods of
development
1.
Narrative or story-telling and
2.
Inverted pyramid style
The vignette works for broad topic stories (drug
abuse) or complicated stories (Fed. Budget)
The vignette lead example
Senior Josh Bartlett gets home from school around 4 p.m. He squeezes in half
an hour of homework – some sociology or maybe a little econ. At 7 p.m.,
after a workout, a shower and a quick dinner, he is ready to hit the books
again, this time for advanced chemistry or calculus.
“On a normal night I can do probably about three hours,” he said.
After he has finished his school assignments, Bartlett also has to prepare
for a mock trial, model UN and an upcoming engineering competition. If he
works straight through, he can be done by 10:30 p.m., but more often he
shoots to finish at 11 and be in bed by 11:30. He rarely makes it.
Bartlett is one of thousands of students in the United States being
smothered by homework. According to researchers at the University of
Michigan, kids are doing more school work than ever before and at much
younger ages. In 1981, grade school students spent 84 minutes a week on
homework. In 1997, that figure was up to 134 minutes per week. In 1997,
junior high students were pounding out upwards of three and a half hours
of homework per week, compared to only two hours in 1981.
The vignette lead
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Useful tool for news, sports and feature writers
Also effective for broadcast features
Find real people to sketch
Fabrication – making up a vignette – is unethical
and unacceptable
Descriptive leads
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Also called background leads
Describe the story’s setting or gives details leading
up to the story itself
Ex: Hundreds of thousands of televisions were tuned into
the Weather Channel as the announcer spoke of
destructive winds and massive waves. Awaiting the
next update and hoping for a change in course,
vacationers and residents alike wondered if they
should leave.
On Aug. 25 they got their answer
Direct address leads
Temporarily speaks directly to the reader by using
second person pronouns “you” and “your.”
 After the lead, the body is written in the normal
third person.
Ex: You may have seen Justin Lopez roaming through
the halls and wondered “Should this guy be in
college?” It turns out that this 6’6”, 235 lb. giant is a
sophomore.
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Direct quotation leads
Used infrequently, and only if the direct quote is
brief
 Do not use a long quote – slows the reader and
inhibits the comprehension of facts
Ex: “When I say Colombia, what do you think of?” Pilar
Gonzalez asks an intent group of Uni students.
“Soccer,” ventures one. There are a few giggles.
“That’s right, what else?” Drugs and coffee are added to
the list. Gonzalez is a speaker from the Colombia
Support Network, here to speak with the Spanish Club.
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Question lead
Used infrequently
 Can be effective if the question is the crux of the
story
Ex: What happens to all of that recycling? Blue bins
have been placed in classrooms, and sometimes
students remember to put their used paper in them,
but when they fill up, what happens to all that stuff?
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Comparison or contrast leads
Time comparison: then and now, yesterday and
today
 Size comparison: macro to micro, global to home
 Cultural comparison: Asian to European, liberal to
conservative
Ex: From the time she was a little girl, Sarah Harvey has
loved flying in commercial jets. A year and a half
ago, on her 16th birthday, Harvey sat in the cockpit
of a Cessna 150 and began flying herself.
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Novelty or oddity leads
Catch-all category
 Creative leads that likely succeed at attracting
readers simply because they are different
 Humorous or startling, allusions
Ex: Most high school students have been told not to play
with matches, but not all of them listened.
The five fires in February alone that scorched the Jordan
bathrooms brought attention to a problem of trash
can and paper dispenser fires that is neither new nor
easily solved.
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Put it into practice!
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Select a news story from page 1 of the newspaper
provided. Identify the 5W’s and H in the first two
paragraphs. Which one begins the story? Why do
you think the reporter chose that one to begin the
story?
Select one news story from anywhere in the paper
that has a news summary lead and rewrite the lead
using either a descriptive, comparison or contrast,
question or direct address lead
Find a news story with an example of a vignette
lead. Do you think this lead is effective and why?