Leads and Story Basics

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Leads and Story Basics

• Week 1

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Topics for Today

• Whats news
• Discuss broadcast news topics
• Basic story structure
• Leads
• Leads
• More leads
• Return to story structure

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The inverted pyramid

• Reports of its death have been greatly
  exaggerated.
• Most important to least important
• Newspaper readers spend 15 to 25 minutes per day
  reading the paper
• Online subscribers spend even less

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The inverted pyramid

• Readers can find the key information first
• Editors can trim less important information if
  necessary
• Began in the Civil War (or before)?
• Forces writers to rank the importance of the
  information (Key to good leads too)

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The inverted pyramid

• Lead comes first
• Supporting paragraphs in descending order of
  importance
• Multiple editions of a newspaper or newscast with
  story running different lengths
• Negatives It doesnt encourage people to read
  the entire story

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Leads

• Clear, simple statement
• First paragraph -- occasionally two paragraphs
• Key news values
• So what? or Who cares?

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Leads - basic questions

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

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Lead basics

• Ask these questions
• A few other things as appropriate
• Word limit?
• 25 is good
• Depends on the story
• May be two sentences, if necessary
• Remember, what do you want to know?

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Leads

• Telling someone a story when theyre trying to
  catch a bus
• Just the facts . . . .
• Avoid editorializing
• Keep your opinions out
• Double check spelling, address, key facts
• Avoid too many numbers in the lead

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• A fire in Bryan caused 45,000 in damages to a
  two-bedroom home in the 2300 block of 28th
  Street. Fire officials said the fire was started
  by a lighted cigarette on a sofa. Firefighters
  arrived at the house at 330 a.m. to find it on
  fire. They had the blaze under control in five
  minutes. The homeowner, Kathy Mahoney, was
  awakened by the smoke and flames. She suffered
  minor burns on her hands and feet.

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Alternate leads

• Which item is most important?
• What if
• Mahoney is the mayor of Bryan?
• Mahoney is a convicted arsonist?
• Have there been may fires caused by smoking this
  year?

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Types of leads

• You lead
• Tells readers why they should care
• Immediate-identification lead
• Who is one of the most important facts
• Delayed-identification leads
• Who is one of the least important facts

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Types of leads

• Summary lead
• Sums up what happened
• Most common lead type
• Multiple-element lead
• Laundry list of topics
• Use sparingly

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Novelty Leads

• Some stories are best written with an unusual
  lead

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• A Santa Ana woman was charged with attempted
  murder yesterday. She was being held in the
  Orange County jail after being unable to post
  250,000 bond. Police said the woman, June
  Carter, 71, doused her husband, who was confined
  to a wheelchair and had cancer, with rubbing
  alcohol and set him on fire. Police said she was
  angry because he ate her chocolate Easter bunny.
  She called paramedics six hours after the attack
  on her husband. Paul Carter, 62, was taken to the
  University of California Irvine Burn center with
  third-degree burns, police said.

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Story organization

• A good lead makes the rest of the story easy to
  write
• Following the lead, introduce any additional
  important information
• Explain the so what if possible
• Elaborate on the information in the lead

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Story structure

• Develop the ideas in the same order they are
  introduced
• Generally, use one paragraph per idea
• Yes, you can have one-sentence paragraphs

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Multiple-element stories

• A multi-element lead frequently means a
  multiple-element story
• Board meetings, council meetings
• Options
• More than one story
• A summary box (nice graphic element)
• Multi-element story -- same format as regular
  story.