Ask a professional reporter, and he will tell you that the most difficult part of writing news reports is writing news leads. If you get your news lead right then the rest of the story does not take long.
You should not allow yourself to be bogged down with information that you have gathered. Instead, adopt the following four-point approach:
# Tip 1: Find the most newsworthy point
On a sheet of paper list the three most important points of the story. Examine each one closely. If need be, take the help of a colleague. Toss out the ones that have relatively less news value. Now, focus on the one that is most newsworthy.
Another way to find the most newsworthy point is to imagine an interaction with your Editor, who does not like to have his time wasted. Imagine what you will say if he asks you, “What happened?” That answer is the most newsworthy point of your story. It should form the news lead.
# Tip 2: Keep your Lead short
Your goal should be to ensure that the news lead does not go past the 20-word mark. Write and rewrite the lead. Make sure that it is limited to one point only. Delete all adjectives and adverbs. You will realize that the lead becomes better with every unnecessary word that you remove.
Ideally, the lead should be of one sentence only. However, there may be occasions when you need to use two sentences. Do so. Your goal should be to improve clarity by using two sentences instead of cluttering one sentence with too many details.
# Tip 3: Use short and simple words
The best leads are those that use short, simple and commonly used words. They make it easier for a reader to understand your report.
# Tip 4: Catch the reader’s attention
The lead must grab the reader’s attention. Ask yourself the following questions: Does the news point come out? Is the news point gripping enough to sustain the reader’s interest? Is the lead easy to understand?
Writing the news lead
You should now use the time-tested five Ws and an H approach. It is simple, direct, and invariably gets you off to the right start.
The 5Ws tell you the Who, What, Where, When and Why of a story while the H explains the How. Go through your notes and type the answer against each W. There may be some Ws for which there is no answer. Write no information against these Ws.
You are now ready to write the lead.
Let’s say your Editor has asked you to write a weather story on the occasion of Republic Day. You check with weather office and you are told that there will be dense fog over New Delhi though the first half of the day. The temperature is expected to be around 4.7 degrees. The visibility is expected be low. The flight and train movements are likely to be disrupted. However, the fog is expected to lift by the time the Republic Day parade starts.
To write the news lead, you need to organise this information in the 5Ws and an H format.
Who: Weather office
What: Dense fog expected over New Delhi; visibility to be low; flight and train traffic to be affected; temperature to fall to 4.7 degrees
Where: New Delhi
When: January 26
How: Not known
Why: Not known
The next step is to decide the most important news point. The What ‘W’ lists four points:
a. Dense fog expected over New Delhi;
b. Visibility to be low
c. Flight and train traffic to be affected
d. Temperature to fall to 4.7 degrees
In this case, the news point seems straightforward. It is the likelihood of dense fog on Republic Day in New Delhi with temperature falling to 4.7 degrees centigrade. The other points can be covered in the second paragraph.
Your news lead therefore should be:
Dense fog is expected to envelop New Delhi on the morning of Republic Day with the temperature falling to 4.7 degrees centigrade, according to weather office.
(Editor’s Note: This report was first published in 2013 and has been updated.)
Read Also:
Kinds of Leads IV: Question, Suspense
Kinds of Leads III: Simple, Multiple Point and Quotation
Kinds of Leads II: When, Where and How
Kinds of Leads I: Who, What, Why
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