WRITING THE LEAD
Newspaper English is the standard. There may be critics, who
belong to a past generation and who have learned by rule, but
for flexible, expressive use of the language the newspaper and
the other publications for the masses cannot be surpassed....
When scientific or technical terms are employed there is
sufficient context to make clear the application. There is no
strained effort or laborious use of words to-day. Nor is there
a deterioration, as some of the professors of English would
have us believe. Newspaper style is simple, direct, concise,
instructive and self-explanatory. This sets the standard
for the great mass of the public.--From an editorial in the
Washington _Herald_.
The method of telling the news story is usually the opposite of that
employed by the writer of fiction. Instead of giving the setting of
his story and then working gradually toward the climax, the news
writer, as a rule, puts the climax in the very beginning--in what is
technically called the lead of the story. If three persons were killed
in a train wreck he tells that fact succinctly in the opening sentence.
There is no halting, no preliminary catching of the breath, but a
straightforward plunge into the main facts. Here again news writing is
closely akin to everyday speech. If you were telling, in a hurried
conversation, of a baseball game you had just seen, you would begin by
giving the score--the result of the game. Then, as time permitted, you
would elaborate with details. That is the method of the news story of
immediate importance, whose primary purpose is to inform.
A distinction was made in the preceding chapter between a story of this
kind and a feature story. What is said here of the lead does not apply
to feature writing, which often follows the fictional method of holding
the reader in suspense. Neither does it apply to the news story which
is told so briefly that a summary of the facts in the beginning would
result in immediate and useless repetition in the body of the story.
WHAT THE LEAD IS
The straight news lead of the story that is allotted enough space to
warrant the giving of details contains the main facts boiled down in
the opening sentences. The lead should be complete in itself, so that
the reader may grasp the essentials without being compelled to read the
entire story. Remember that your story is not an essay to be read at
leisure. It is written for busy men and women, and its function is to
inform, and inform quickly. The average American reader has no time for
the rambling type of story that describes the “dark and stilly night”
to the extent of a column and then tells in the last paragraph that a
man was murdered. He demands to know about the murder at once. Then, if
he is interested, he will read the details.
Seldom is the lead longer than a paragraph, unless it is broken up
by making each sentence a paragraph. This first paragraph--the most
important in the story, since it tells the facts in a nutshell--should
be made as concise and pithy as possible. Tell all the essential facts,
but avoid cumbersome sentence structure in doing so. Short, simple
sentences are the most forcible. Above all, make the lead easy for the
reader to understand.
WHAT THE LEAD SHOULD CONTAIN
Who? What? When? Where? Why? It is a standard rule that the news lead
should answer these questions about the story. Properly interpreted,
the rule is a good one, but it may be applied too literally. The
beginner in news writing is inclined to go to the extreme in trying
to answer each question in the first sentence. The result is often
an involved sentence in which the reader becomes lost in a maze of
participles and qualifying clauses. Here is a sample from a story
turned in by a “cub” reporter:
While studying last night for an examination, Miss Sallie
Smith, 18 years old, a student in the Blank Business College,
fell asleep and overturned a lamp, severely burning her face
and hands and slightly burning her father, John Smith, a
plasterer, who came to her rescue when he heard her scream, and
causing damage amounting to about $300 to their home, 2015 East
Broadway.
Here is material for three or four sentences, crowded together
haphazard. Aside from its other manifest faults, the sentence is too
cumbersome for the newspaper. Don’t write sentences that require the
reader to catch his breath before he gets to the end.
Sometimes, however, the story is of such a nature that the leading
facts can readily be told in a single graphic sentence. For example the
following lead of a published telegraph dispatch:
More than 100 men are believed to have been killed by a
terrific explosion in the Blank Mines of the Brown Fuel and
Iron Company at 4:30 o’clock this afternoon.
This sentence answers all the essential questions. Note that the writer
does not begin with the fact of the explosion and work toward the loss
of life, but tells at once, in the simplest manner possible, that 100
men may have perished. This is the vital fact of the story. No words
are wasted in preliminaries. Without attempt at ornamentation, the
writer goes directly to the heart of the story. It is conceivable that
he might have written, in the conventional fashion of those who have
formed the habit of beginning every story with a participle:
Struggling vainly to escape from the poisonous gases that
filled every innermost recess, 100 helpless miners, caught like
rats in a trap, met death as the result of, etc.
Note the difference in effect between the short, clear statement of
fact and the lead that attempts to gain the reader’s attention by “fine
writing.” Get rid of the idea that because a sentence is simple it is
weak. The Bible says “Jesus wept.” If the average writer were called
upon to put that fact into words, he would probably rack his brain for
descriptive epithets. Yet the Bible tells it all in two words of one
syllable each--a verb and its subject--of more compressed power than a
page of thundering adjectives.
When the lead cannot be told in a single sentence without danger of
clumsiness and confusion, don’t hesitate to divide it into several
sentences. In the first sentence tell the most important thing--the
climax--in order to grip the reader’s attention. Then tell the other
facts needed for a quick understanding of the story and after that
develop the story logically.
OBSERVANCE OF STYLE
Your style of writing the lead will depend somewhat on the custom of
the paper for which you are working. Some newspapers still insist
rigidly on the who-what-when-where-why rule for beginning all except
feature stories and short items. Others are departing more and more
from the rule. The tendency nowadays on a few well-edited newspapers
(notably the Kansas City _Star_ and _Times_) is to tell the story
chronologically from the start, leaving out the lead or introduction
altogether, except perhaps in the case of especially important
happenings such as the mine disaster referred to above. This is
probably the result of the growing importance of the headline in the
modern newspaper. Formerly newspapers were content to use general
headings, such as “Very Important,” “The Latest from Europe” and
“Court News,” but the present-day newspaper aims to tell the story
specifically in the head. Thus the average news story really is put
before the reader three times--once in the head, again in the lead and
finally in the story proper. Doubt of the wisdom in all cases of this
double repetition is responsible for the tendency to drop the lead and
let the headline usurp its place. No invariable rules as to when this
is advisable can be laid down. The writer should study carefully the
style of his paper and be guided by it.
LEADS TO BE AVOIDED
It is a good general rule, and one enforced by nearly all newspapers,
to avoid beginning a story with the time. An exception may be made,
of course, when the time of a happening is the factor that makes the
story. Ordinarily the time is not important enough to be put first in
the sentence, though it should be told well toward the beginning of the
story. Similarly, avoid starting a story with the place. The weakness
of the lead that violates these rules is shown in the following
sentence:
At 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon, at Sixth and Market streets,
William Jones was shot and killed, etc.
Avoid the trite lead, such as “caught like rats in a trap” and “never
in the history of.” The newspaper writer unconsciously accumulates a
vast stock of convenient trite phrases, on which he is tempted to draw
when working hurriedly. A moment’s thought, however, will nearly always
suggest a better way of expression.
“At a meeting of” is usually a weak beginning, and some newspapers
never permit it. Better tell at the outset what was done at the
meeting. It is more effective to say, “Three patrolmen were discharged
yesterday by the Police Board” than “At a meeting of the Police Board
yesterday three patrolmen were discharged.” The meeting itself is an
incident. The results of the meeting make the story.
Avoid the lead burdened with police data. For example:
Frank Smith, 23 years old, residing at 1010 A street, was
arrested this morning at 10 o’clock by Patrolman Jones of the
Fifth District on a charge of stabbing and severely wounding
Arthur Brown, 27 years old, of 2510 B street.
Writing of this kind appears to have been copied from the police
reports. It is forbidden by all well-edited newspapers. Reserve
unessential details for the body or the conclusion of the story if
they are used at all. Let the lead tell the main facts unhampered by
statistics.
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Much that might be said further about writing the lead is summed up
in the simple injunction: Be natural. Some newspapers caution their
writers against beginning a story with “a” or “the,” but an examination
of the leading newspapers of the country shows that this practice is
not generally followed. Strict adherence to such a rule would often
cause cumbersome or unnatural sentence structure. Unless your paper
forbids it, don’t be afraid to begin your first sentence with an
article if that is the logical, natural way to state the main fact. On
the other hand, avoid overworking “a” and “the.” The same advice is
applicable to the lead in general, and in fact to all news writing:
don’t adopt one kind of sentence structure and use it to the exclusion
of all others. A series of sentences all built on the same plan becomes
monotonous. In this respect as well as in others get variety into your
story.
LEADS THAT BEGIN WITH NAMES
By no means taboo the sentence that begins with the name of a person,
especially if that name is widely known. Often the best lead possible
is one that tells the name of the chief character at the outset.
A “big” name attracts immediate attention. Often it is the only
justification for printing the story. The fact that the average citizen
sprains his ankle is not news; but it is news if the President of the
United States sprains his ankle. The name in the latter case, not the
accident, makes the story worth while. In another type of story the
name is of little importance; the main thing is the happening on which
the story is based. Bear these facts in mind in writing your lead. The
ideal story, from the news standpoint, is one which combines big names
and big happenings.
When, however, your story tells of an accident in which several persons
were killed or injured, put the names near the beginning, even though,
considered separately, they are not important as news. In reading the
account of a disaster of any kind in which human lives were lost the
average reader looks first at the names; he is eager to learn if anyone
in whom he is interested was injured or killed. After the Iroquois
theater fire in Chicago, one great newspaper devoted its entire front
page to a list of the killed and injured. It is a common practice of
many newspapers to enclose tabulated lists of the killed and injured,
with a concise statement of the nature of the injuries, in what
newspaper men call a “box” to go at the head of the story. This not
only aids the reader but simplifies the work of the news writer.
It is possible, in minor stories of unimportant persons, to carry
the “featuring” of names to an extreme. Noting this tendency in its
staff at one time, a widely read western newspaper issued a rule that
thereafter no story should begin with a name. No exceptions were made.
The result was strained and artificial writing in the first sentences
of many of the leading news stories. At the end of a week the order was
recalled.
THE GENERAL RULE
Reference has been made to the advice sometimes given news writers to
tell who, what, when, where and why as soon as possible in the story.
Investigation shows that if any such rule exists it is not generally
adhered to. Facts that come under these heads are often subordinated to
make the lead clear or to give the main fact added prominence. Every
story must be considered by itself. If any strict rule can be laid
down, it is this: Tell the main facts first, as clearly and forcibly as
you can. Remember, however, on whatever plan you build your lead, to
answer all the essential questions somewhere in the story. The story
that tells who, what, when, where and why, and in addition explains
how, is likely to be complete. As a reporter, run over these questions
in your mind and see if you are prepared to give an answer to each.
STUDY OF 100 TYPICAL STORIES
To ascertain the favorite newspaper method of beginning the story,
chiefly from the point of view of sentence structure, the writer
examined 100 first-page stories in sixteen of the leading daily
newspapers of the country. This is the result, tabulated:
Beginning with subject of main verb 71
Beginning with modifying phrase or clause 23
Beginning with direct quotation 4
Beginning with “There is” 2
In other words, 71 per cent. opened with a simple, direct statement of
fact, with the qualifying parts subordinated. Twenty-three per cent.
opened with a qualifying phrase or clause containing some feature of
the story, as “thanks to the wireless telegraph,” “dragged more than
100 feet” and “unless a court ruling interferes.” Four per cent. began
with a striking quotation, while only 2 per cent. used the “there is”
structure in the first sentence.
Of the seventy-one stories that began with the main clause, twenty-two
put names first. In nearly every such case the name was that of some
widely known person, either nationally or in the community in which the
paper is published, such as the President, a governor or a chief of
police.
Only six of the 100 stories began with a subordinate phrase in the
participial form. One story opened by answering the question “why” in a
“because” clause and two opened with “although.” Not one gave the time
or the place first in the sentence. In no case was the introductory
sentence long or involved.
The figures here compiled are instructive in showing that the modern
news writer wastes no time in preliminaries, but goes straight to the
heart of his story.
The first words of twenty typical leads of the 100 examined, indicating
their sentence structure, are here given:
Eleven men were killed ...
With two of the leading families of Monroe county arrayed
against each other ...
Two chivalrous firemen rescued ...
Stirred by the disclosures ...
With the arrival of the steamship ...
Business reverses are said to have been the cause ...
Evidence tending to prove that ...
The United Wireless Station ...
Three hundred insurgents ...
Governor Hadley’s statement ...
Sure of a prompt response ...
A general denial ...
Declaring the farmer to be the last person considered ...
President Taft ...
A verdict of ...
The results of the ...
With a dead man at the steering wheel, an automobile ...
The “wet” or “dry” issue ...
Indictment of twelve men ...
Complaints have reached ...
SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME OR CLASS-ROOM STUDY
I. Straightforward, simple news lead of an Associated Press dispatch,
broken up into three terse sentences:
WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 19.--Four men were killed to-day by
the premature explosion of a five-inch gun at the Indian Head
Proving Grounds of the navy. The breech block of the gun, which
was being tested, blew backward into the gun crew. Lieutenant
Arthur G. Caffee was one of the men killed.
The dead in addition to Lieutenant Caffee are:
(List of the dead follows, then a detailed story half a column
in length.)
(Note that all the essential questions are answered in this lead: Who?
“Four men,” giving names. What? “Killed.” When? “To-day.” Where? “At
the Indian Head Proving Grounds.” The cause of the explosion was not
determined, but the writer tells succinctly how the men were killed.)
II. Contrast the foregoing method with that of the following lead from
the Kansas City _Star_, in which a dramatic situation is emphasized by
holding the interest suspended. (The names are fictitious):
“Fore!”
The word rang distinctly in the clear air yesterday afternoon.
A party of golf players watched a ball which went whizzing
through the air from No. 4 to No. 5 hole on the golf links at
Swope Park. Almost in their line of vision a puff of smoke went
into the air. The faint sound of a shot reached them. They saw
a man fall.
John Smith, formerly a clerk for the Blank Brothers Coal
Company, had shot and mortally wounded himself. Scores of
golfers and other persons walking about the park rushed to the
spot where Smith had fallen. The first to reach him was Mrs.
J. W. Jones of 10 A street, who had been strolling about the
park with her four children. She heard the revolver shot and
saw Smith fall. The bullet had entered his head near the right
temple and passed through.
(The story continues to the extent of a column.)
(This story illustrates what has been said of the tendency, as regards
news of secondary importance, to work toward, rather than from, the
climax. A news lead of the type in I would have contained the fact
of the suicide in the first sentence. Note the effect of the short
sentences.)
III. The lead of another suicide story from the same newspaper in which
the method is more conventional:
After suffering from acute rheumatism that had rendered
him helpless three years, confining him to his home and
necessitating his retirement from active business, John W.
Williams, 50 years old, ended his life at 5 o’clock yesterday
afternoon in his apartments at 20 West street by a revolver
shot.
(All the essential facts about the story are here told in a nutshell.
The lead could have stood as a complete story had space requirements
demanded that the succeeding paragraphs be “killed.”)
IV. Opening of a fire story from the Chicago _Record-Herald_ in which
the human-interest feature is “played up”:
Seven families were driven to the streets and two sleeping
infants rescued and carried from their cribs by their terrified
mothers in a fire which last night attacked the Catalpa
Apartments, 1727-29 Humboldt boulevard, causing a loss of
$30,000.
The fire, which spread rapidly throughout the three-story
brick apartment building, was caused by a faulty boiler in the
basement. The flames rushed up the air shaft, thus attacking
the three floors at practically the same time.
The fire occurred early in the evening, before any of the
families had retired, and this fact alone prevented probable
fatalities.
(Note how the writer has jumped right into the middle of things without
waste of words. While the human-interest element is made prominent,
other features of the story are not neglected.)
V. Lead showing that good news style does not demand that all the
salient facts be crowded into one sentence:
LONDON, Nov. 18.--An army of 350 militant suffragettes tried to
storm Parliament Friday. Charging with Amazonian fury against
the double line of police about the building, they made half
a dozen attempts to break through the cordon. Six women were
arrested.
VI. Lead from the New York _Sun_ which begins with a direct quotation:
“If hell stood in need of a king or queen there are people on
earth to-day who could take the job and hold it down,” said
Bishop Quayle of the Methodist Church, in a sermon he preached
yesterday morning in the Washington Heights Church. Bishop
Quayle, a product of Kansas City, is considered “a typical man
of the West,” one who not only ventures to slap another man on
the back, but whom another Westerner would dare slap on the
back.
(Here the news writer has called attention to his story by picking out
and “featuring” a striking sentiment from the speaker’s remarks. The
second sentence skillfully characterizes the speaker and conveys the
idea that here is no stereotyped report of a sermon, as the reader
might have feared, but a pleasant, informal summary of its most
interesting points.)
VII. In which the story is summarized in a short opening quotation:
LAREDO, TEX., Nov. 19.--“Mexico to-night faces the most serious
crisis in recent years.”
The foregoing statement made to-night by United States Consul
Garrett at Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just across the border,
summarizes the situation as it exists now along the frontier.
VIII. Illustrating the use of direct quotation in the lead to give the
“atmosphere” of an interview:
NEW YORK, Nov. 18.--“This is the age of woman, the domestic
pet. Also it is the age of gold, which is necessary to the
proper coddling of domestic pets.”
This is one of the ideas which Miss Margaret McMillan has come
to America to lecture about. Miss McMillan is not “another of
those English suffragists.” She was born in Westchester, N. Y.,
and is an authority in England on the education and needs of
children.
IX. Lead in which the feature is put in indirect quotation:
BALTIMORE, Nov. 12.--Drinking and cigarette smoking are not on
the increase among the women of America, according to Lillian
M. N. Stevens, president of the National Women’s Christian
Temperance Union. Addressing the annual convention of the
organization here to-day, she said in part:
(Direct quotation follows.)
X. The chronological method of telling a story which is so short that a
summary of the facts in a formal lead would be useless:
NYACK, N. Y., Oct. 27.--Joseph de Bonti, an 8-year-old boy of
Haverstraw, before starting for school put a revolver cartridge
in his mouth and began biting on it.
The cartridge exploded and the boy fell to the floor dead, the
bullet having gone upward through the brain.
XI. Example of the use that is sometimes made of an apt quotation to
precede a feature story. From the Kansas City _Star_:
_Matilda wash the dishes; Lucinda fetch the broom;
And Sookey set the chairs nice all around the room._
--_Old Song_
HUTCHINSON, KAN., Nov. 18.--Because Stubbs won in Kansas,
Ernest Switzer, an employé of the Bell Telephone Company, must
play the part of an unwilling Cinderella while the hired girl
spends the evening taking in the canned drama at the motion
picture shows.
XII. Where the time is the feature of the story:
An hour before the funeral of his father was held yesterday,
William Brown, 30 years old, was called from his home, 113 Z
street, and arrested. The arrest was made at the request of the
police of Chicago, etc.
XIII. Where the place is the feature of the story:
GUTHRIE, OK., Nov. 17.--In rooms numbered 62, 47 and 32 at the
Royal Hotel there is sweeping and dusting to-night. Governor
Haskell has notified the landlord of the hotel that he will
return to Guthrie early Saturday morning to resume his official
residence, which he abandoned the night of June 11 to go to
Oklahoma City.
XIV. Showing how the same story was epitomized by two different writers:
1. From the Chicago _Record-Herald_:
DENVER, Nov. 17.--Ralph Johnstone, the Wright brothers’ most
daring aviator and the holder of the world’s record for
altitude flights, fell 500 feet at Overland Park to-day, and
broke every bone in his body. In attempting a “spiral glide” to
the earth he forgot for a moment that the atmosphere here has
not the carrying power of that to which he was accustomed, and
death was his penalty.
Many thousands of spectators were on the field when Johnstone
fell, but only a few hundred of them actually saw the accident,
for the attention of the great crowd was centered upon
Johnstone’s partner, Hoxsey, then in air.
2. From the Kansas City _Star_:
DENVER, Nov. 17.--With one wing tip of his machine bent and
broken, Ralph Johnstone, the aviator who held the world’s
altitude record, fell from a height of five hundred feet
into the inclosure at Overland Park aviation field late this
afternoon and was killed. When the spectators crowded about
the inclosure reached him, his body lay beneath the engine of
the biplane with the white planes that had failed him wrapped
about it like a shroud. Nearly every bone in his body was
broken.
XV. The following leads illustrate various faults. Criticize from the
point of view of style and re-write:
1. Alleging a systematic police third degree by means of which
she insists special officers of the Blank Street District have
persecuted her 19-year-old son, John, Mrs. Mary Smith of 1010 C
street appeared before Judge William Brown in chambers, Friday
noon, and succeeded in laying before the judge evidence of such
a character that the court held in abeyance its revocation of
the young man’s parole. If the contention of the mother proves
correct, Chief of Police Jones will likely take a hand and the
Board of Police Commissioners may be given the matter.
2. The three-story brick building at 140-158 D avenue was
completely destroyed by fire early to-day, the blaze being
extinguished only after three alarms had been sounded. The
damage is estimated at $50,000. The building was occupied by
the Blank Bag Company and was situated in the center of a
factory section. The three hundred employés, men and women, are
thrown out of work.
3. At the meeting of the Blank Improvement Association at Smith
Hall, Broadway and Wilson street, yesterday afternoon, a fight
was proposed against the City Railways Company and a complaint
will probably be filed in Police Court in a few days if the
Eighth street car line is not extended to the city limits. They
also want more cars during the rush hours over the present
line. William Howard, manager of the City Railways, has
refused to put on more cars to accommodate the traffic, it is
said.