Types of Leads for Broadcast Stories

The summary lead used for print news often is too long for broadcast news and too difficult to follow when read aloud. Too much information (who, what, where, when, why and how) frustrates audiences. They cannot digest it all at once. Audiences will understand the story better if the information is delivered in separate sentences.

Broadcast news stories follow a “pyramid” formula: The most important element of a story comes first, followed by the rest of the information. The lead does not have to tell the whole story. And, because newscasts are timed before they are aired, journalists can write a complete story without fearing that the ending sentence or paragraph will be edited out at the last moment.

A broadcast lead must capture audiences’ attention immediately or they will be lost to the story forever. The lead should tell audiences one or two important facts and ease them into the rest of the story.

The best leads capture audiences’ attention by involving them in some way. Many people are going to care about a story regarding a new corn hybrid. Even if they are not farmers, they will be affected by the impact the hybrid corn has on the price of corn in the supermarket. In a college town, most students will be interested in new bicycle laws that will affect the way in which they get to their classes. For others, the story will explain the new paths they see crisscrossing campus.

Yet the lead must not give away too much important information. Audiences usually don’t hear the first two or three words of a lead, but they see or hear something that interests them.

Leads are rewritten throughout the day for ongoing stories. Whereas newspapers are published once a day and give yesterday’s news, broadcast news can air any time of the day, as often as necessary. With hourly updates, broadcast stories can tell today’s news as it happens. Thus, broadcast news needs to be rewritten each time to freshen the information and update or e the story.

Four common types of leads are the soft lead, the hard lead, the throwaway lead and the umbrella lead. Each is written to intrigue and interest the audience and provide a transition to the rest of the story.

The Soft Lead

The soft lead tells the audience that something important is coming up and invites them to continue listening to hear the story. Soft leads, similar to soft-news stories, “featurize” information before getting to the hard news A soft lead usually tells audiences why the information is important or how it affects them:

Lead: State officials say they spent a record amount this year to maintain our roads and bridges. Rest of the story: Transportation Department Director Jason Taylor says: state spent about one-billion-dollars on 513 road projects this year, making this year the costliest in state history. Some of that money was spent on overtime for workers, enabling about 80-percent of the year’s road construction projects to end on time. Here is another example of a soft lead:

Lead: Smoke still fills the air over western Colorado. REST OF THE STORY: A wild fire that injured 30 firefighters and threatened homes has already burned 12-thousand acres. High temperatures and strong winds make job harder for the 15-hundred firefighters who continue working around the clock.

Hard Lead

Hard Leads give important information immediately. Some broadcasters believe that, as a result, the important facts that audiences need to know are gone before audiences realize they need to “tune in” to what is being said. Yet, some audiences want to hear the most meaningful information first.

Lead: The man who raped three St. Louis men, killing one of them, was sent to prison for life today. Read of the story Ervine McMitchelle drew a life term for the first-degree murder of Henry LaDouche last year. County Circuit Judge Ashley Monahan also gave McMitchelle 50-to-75- years for each of three counts of rape. The rapes occurred between 1994 and last year.

Here is another example of a hard lead:

Lead: More than 165 passengers are safe, after a seven-47 airplane made an emergency landing at the Minneapolis Metro Airport today

Rest of the story: Airport director Jean Richards says shortly after takeoff, a door blew open in the luggage compartment. The plane then dumped its fuel and returned to the airport. Richards says only one piece of luggage was dropped-and it was recovered intact. She says it appears a hinge came loose from the door.

The plane refueled and took off again, after a two-hour delay.

The Throwaway Lead

The throwaway lead intrigues audiences. After they have “tuned in” to the story, the next sentence begins the real lead. A story would make sense without the throwaway lead-but without it, the story might not have attracted audiences:

Lead: If you think your pampered pooch or cuddly kitty deserves the national spotlight, here’s your chance.

Rest of the story: The International Pet Cemeteries Foundation in Austin, Texas, plans to build a National Pet Hall of Fame by the year two-thousand-three.

The president of the foundation, Heidi Hills, says members hope to provide education about pets and also memorialize famous and not-so-famous pets.

Here is another example of a throwaway lead:

Lead: Finally, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Rest of the story: After more than a week of unseasonably warm weather across our state, cold temperatures are back. Light snow is possible today in the Upper Peninsula and in other parts of the state. Today’s highs are expected to reach about 42degrees.

The Umbrella Lead

The umbrella lead summarizes or ties together two or more related news stories before delving into each separately. The lead tells audiences the relationship between the stories:

Lead: Police are looking into the possibility of a connection among 20 recent dog napping in the area.

Rest of the story: Mason Animal Shelter Director John Ertos says he has received 12 inquiries about lost dogs since yesterday. Most of these dogs were in fenced in back yards or on leashes. In nearby Dansville, police Officer Annie Bearclaw says the station has logged eight calls reporting missing dogs within two days.

This is a high number of calls about missing pets-dogs specifically-within a two day period.

The Body of a Broadcast News Story: The inverted-pyramid print news story presents its facts in descending order of importance. After each sentence or paragraph, the reader can leave the story, having gleaned an increasingly detailed sense of what happened. Also, print editors can cut the story almost anywhere, knowing that the most important information has already been presented.

In broadcast news, every sentence of a story is important because when audiences leave the story, they are usually leaving the newscast. In addition, audiences generally cannot digest a lot of information all at once, so broadcast stories are short. Every sentence needs to be heard. Stories need to be tight, with no extraneous information or loose ends. Although the most important information is given first, what follows is important, too. Sometimes facts are presented in descending order of importance, sometimes in chronological order with a narrative format. Overall, sentences are shorter and contain fewer facts than those used in print stories.

Descending Order of Importance: The broadcast journalist must first figure out the most significant piece of information to tell audiences. It goes in a story’s lead. Then the journalist must anticipate what else audiences want to know. This information makes up the body of the story.

Although a story may contain several pieces of information, their order is usually dictated by the facts given in the lead. If the lead indicates that a minister was killed late last night, audiences will want to know the victim’s name. They will also want to know where, how or why the victim was killed. And they will want to know what police are doing about the case:

A Presbyterian minister has been found dead in her church office.

First Presbyterian Church secretary Robert Abrahm found the door unlocked and the Reverend Sarah Chen dead when he came in to work this morning on the church newsletter.

Police Chief Chris Stagers says Chen died a little before mid- night, but he is not yet sure how she died Chen had been minister of the First Presbyterian Church for more than eight years.

Chronological Order: In the chronological type of broadcast news story, the climax- the most significant part makes up the lead. Then, as in chronological print stories, the details are related to audiences in the order of their occurrence. Journalists relate the story in the order of when events happened, not the order in which they found out about each fact:

Police have found a Presbyterian minister dead in her church office.

Police Chief Chris Stagers says the Reverend Sarah Chen died a little before midnight. About nine hours later, First Presbyterian Church secretary Robert Abrahm came in to work on the church newsletter, found the door unlocked and Chen dead in her office. Authorities are trying to learn how she died.

Chen had been minister of the First Presbyterian Church for more than eight years.

Updating Broadcast News Stories: Many radio stations have several newscasts throughout the day. Although new stories may replace old ones, stations must keep audiences up to date on important, ongoing events. Thus, the same story may be repeated throughout the day, but freshened with new angles, additional interviews or more recent information. The lead sentence and body of the story should never stay exactly the same in successive newscasts. Here are two updated leads:

Police say a Presbyterian minister found dead in her office this morning was killed by a gunshot to the heart.

The person who shot and killed a minister late last night was probably trying to rob the church, police say.