Editing News style (section)

==={{anchor|Lede|Bury the lead|Bury the lede|off-lead|off-lede}}Lead===
{{Further information|Lead paragraph}}
[[File:Communiqué de presse du Conseil fédéral, 28.02.2020 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Press release of the Swiss government. Typical structure with title, lead paragraph (summary in bold), other paragraphs (details) and contact information.]]

The most important structural element of a story is the ''lead'' (also ''intro'' or ''lede'' in journalism jargon), comprising the story's first, or leading, sentence or possibly two.  The lead almost always forms its own paragraph. The spelling ''lede'' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|iː|d}}, from [[Early Modern English]]) is also used in [[American English]], originally to avoid confusion with the [[printing press]] type formerly made from the metal [[lead]] or the related typographical term "[[leading]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001128 |title=The Mavens' Word of the Day |publisher=[[Random House]] |date=November 28, 2000 |access-date=July 29, 2009}}</ref>

Charnley states that "an effective lead is a brief, sharp statement of the story's essential facts."<ref>
{{cite book
| title=      Reporting
| page=       185
| last=       Charnley
| first=      Mitchell V
| year=       1966
| publisher=  Holt Rinehart And Winston Inc
| url=        https://archive.org/details/reporting0000char/page/185/mode/1up?q=effective&view=theater
}}</ref><!----
{{clarify|date=October 2014|reason=Whom is Charnley quoting?}}: no-one(!)
  - nested quotes were superfluous!
          ---->  The lead is normally a single sentence, is ideally 20–25 words in length, and must balance the ideal of maximum information conveyed against the constraint of the unreadability of a long sentence. This makes writing a lead an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lead should answer most or all of the [[five Ws]], few leads can fit all of these.

Article leads are sometimes categorized into hard leads and soft leads. A ''hard lead'' aims to provide a comprehensive thesis which tells the reader what the article will cover. A ''soft lead'' introduces the topic in a more creative, [[attention-seeking]] fashion, and is usually followed by a [[Nut graph|nutshell paragraph (or nut graf)]], a brief summary of facts.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=q5igJFE66YwC&q=%22hard+lede%22+%22soft+lede%22&pg=PA109 | title=Unzipped! Newswriting|first=Chris|last=Kensler| year=2007| publisher=Peterson's| isbn=9780768924923}}</ref>

;Example of a hard-lead paragraph
:NASA is proposing another space project. The agency's budget request, announced today, included a plan to send another mission to the Moon. This time the agency hopes to establish a long-term facility as a jumping-off point for other space adventures. The budget requests approximately $10 billion for the project.

;Example of a soft-lead sentence
:Humans will be going to the Moon again. The NASA announcement came as the agency requested $10 billion of appropriations for the project.

An "'''off-lead'''" is the second most important front page news of the day. The off-lead appears either in the top left corner, or directly below the lead on the right.<ref name="Slate 1998 Sep 7">[https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1999/09/explaining-today-s-papers.html "Explainer: Explaining Today's Papers"], by [[Scott Shuger]], ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]],'' September 7, 1998, updated December 14, 2005 (retrieved December 28, 2018)</ref>

To "'''bury the lead'''" is to begin the article with background information or details of secondary importance to the readers,<ref>{{cite web| url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede|title=Bury the lede|website=[[Wiktionary]]|access-date=2018-04-08}}</ref> forcing them to read more deeply into an article than they should have to in order to discover the essential points. It is a common mistake in [[press releases]],<ref>{{Cite book|title = Working the Story: A Guide to Reporting and News Writing for Journalists and Public Relations Professionals|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XlOfAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122|publisher = [[Rowman & Littlefield]]|date = 2014-01-14|isbn = 9780810889125|language = en|first1 = Douglas Perret|last1 = Starr|first2 = Deborah Williams|last2 = Dunsford|pages = 122}}</ref> but a characteristic of an [[academic writing]] style,<ref>{{Cite book|title = News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=O1hEMuIqtlcC&pg=PA167|publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]|date = 2010-02-11|isbn = 9781139486941|language = en|first = Colleen|last = Cotter|page = 167}}</ref> where its downsides are often mitigated by the inclusion of an [[Abstract_(summary)|abstract]] at the start of an [[Academic_publishing#Scholarly_paper|article]].