Taking the Lead in News Stories
Lesson Page-1

      Who won the doubles tennis match at Wimbledon?  What important meeting is happening now at Camp David?  How did the presidential candidates do in the most recent poll?  Minutes after an event takes place, news stories about them become available through newspapers, radio, and the news web sites.  Wherever anything happens in the world, reporters are at the scene to gather the news. The basic goal of writing news stories is to get the news as quickly as possible to the people who want to know it.

      There are thousands of people who read several news stories a day.  Many of these people are very busy with full time jobs that might also require them to do other kinds of reading.  How do you think these people are able to read several stories a day in a relatively short amount of time?  The answer is the lead.  News stories are written in a type of format that makes getting the main ideas, the most important information about a story, easy.

News stories have two main parts:

• The lead is the first paragraph of the story.  It is a summary of the story which contains only the most important information or main ideas.  It is also written to grab the reader's attention.  It literally "leads" you into the story.

Sample Lead   July 19, 2000
              Clinton Delays Trip to Remain at Peace Talks
                     By JANE PERLEZ
                     In an effort to finalize a Middle East peace accord,President Clinton has
                     delayed his trip to Japan by one day and will stay at Camp David with
                     Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian
                     leader.
                   (New York Times on the Web, Learning Network:  www.nytimes.com/learning)

• The the story gives the supporting details.  These details answer the questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?  This part of the news story may be one or more paragraphs long.