5 Types of News Lead

1) Summary lead

This kind of lead is often seen in breaking news and hard news. This kind of news lead answers the question concept of 5W1H, which almost summarise all of the important points of the news story. In this lead, six people (Who) were killed (What) and 16 (Who) injured (What) when a crowded commuter train and a truck trailer collided (How) on the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark (Where).

2) Descriptive lead

Descriptive lead is all about describing the further details of a certain subject in a news story. Based on this story, the geographical details and the visual details of the buildings and sculptures are being written here. This is to give the readers to imagine the details even before seeing them in life.

3) Punch lead

This kind of lead uses special words or verbs that can surprise the readers. In here, “off the market” is being used here as the strong words of the news lead. Off market is a financial term for stock markets, which means using on people will be unsuitable. However, using this term in a news lead in this way can blow the readers’ minds as they can be amazed by the financial term used on a celebrity.

4) Contrast lead

This kind of lead gives two differences that will show obvious contrast of two sides of the news story. In this lead, it stated that flying in a plane is safe and fast, yet there will be accidents due to certain factors. Another contrast shown is on the last sentence, which is survivors who gets off the plane alive.

5) Anecdotal lead

This lead begins in a way like a story is being written. No facts or statistics are being used in this lead. This kind of lead bounds to attract the readers’ attention through its cinematic storytelling opening. This lead begins by stating that the person was facing stress with his work and family life. The experiences being given here are in a relaxing soft news style, which proves that anecdotal lead suits news that are not serious.