Summary leads, Delayed leads

The summary lead is the most common type of lead. A summary lead conveys the most important information -- putting across the PR writer's message, while making clear that this story is news. That is, it contains the 5 W's, the message and the angle. For example: 

 
         Chicago students will soon be able to 
study math and physics by paying video games -- 
that's the idea behind an online education 
project coming to classrooms this fall.
         The games are designed to teach students 
from kindergarten to college, and the subjects 
range from "Fun with Numbers" to quantum physics. 
Best of all, the educational CDs will be offered 
free to qualified school systems.

See how much information is packed into just a few sentences?

Though the software is being distributed nationwide, the PR writer has made the story local from the very first word of the lead.

We know right away that we're reading about something new and different, and the capper is, it's free!

Notice that the lead doesn't mention the software manufacturer -- no commercial plugs, which could come across as blatant promotion, and trigger editors' internal alarms. New ideas are news but plugging a new product may be unsuitable for their news pages -- it's a fine line.

Notice, too, that this lead could have been written as a single paragraph. Often it's useful to break even a short lead into two even shorter grafs.)


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