The purpose of lede types

At the beginning of my sports information class, I just viewed a lede as one thing to catch a reader and deliver crucial information. As I am sure we have all learned, ledes are much broader than that. In this weeks lecture we touched on 4 types of ledes: hard news, soft news, direct lede and delayed lede. In this installment of my blog, I will talk about these four different types of ledes and when they can be best utilized. These four types can be broken into two categories. In this blog the first category will be (1&2), and the next category will be (3&4).

1. Hard news

When we are looking at hard ledes, it is important to understand how important immediacy is. In order to be hard news, it must be stressed in this lede. The author of the lede understands that the information needs to get out immediately. Timeliness is an aspect that is majorly important to having a good hard lede. A great example is breaking news stories. You want your readers to know how important this news in and must convey this tone in ledes for these types of stories.

2. Soft news

These soft or indirect ledes are going to contain some information that is not as crucial to be included in the release. This approach will typically be longer than a hard lede because it will not be “cutting to the chase” and giving you the NOW information. Don’t get me wrong, these ledes will contain important information, but it will be sprinkled throughout a longer duration. A good way to use these ledes is when the focus is more on human interest. This may look at problems or achievements a person has had. You will dive into more of an emotional component when doing these soft ledes.

3. Direct lede

It is important to note that hard news ledes can also serve as a direct lede. With this said, a direct lede is one that ensure all the essential information is in the opening. You want to cover the five W’s: who, what, when, where, why. You will also want to include the “how” into this. By covering these all in the first paragraph, you are ensuring that the lede is direct. A big advantage of this is in editing. If it is determined that the length needs to be cut down, you know that all other parts can be cut because they won’t have the essential information.

4. Delayed lede

In a delayed lede you are adding a bit more “fluff” information to guide the story. This means that the essential information can be delayed to later paragraphs. With this said, you need to be careful with this “fluff” content. It needs to guide the lede to important parts. I think of it like running errands. The stores are the essential information and the roads to get there are the “fluff”. Its important to understand that a delayed lede has limited amounts you can cut. If you cut a whole paragraph it would make the story incomplete and leave the reader very confused.

My final thoughts

Overall, it is apparent that all ledes have a place, you just must know your situation so you can pick the correct type. In this blog we covered four major types of ledes. As I mentioned before numbers (1&2) and (3&4) are grouped together. Number 1 (hard news) can also be a number 3 (direct lede), and same with 2 and 4. This got me to thinking about potential crossovers of these types of ledes. My question I want to post to you is do you feel a lede can be a number 1 and number 4 (ie hard news lede while also being a delayed lede)? I also want to do the other combination of number 2 and number 3 (ie soft news while being a direct lede)? If you do know of a stituaion that would fit these, can you briefly describe it? I look forward to all of your thoughts in the comments.