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.