| CHAPTER 7 | |
 |
Leads and Endings |
The broadcast lead must capture the interest and attention of the audience. It may announce important developments; it may summarize complicated data; it may scream in joy, cry in pain or wonder in astonishment. But whatever it does and—within reason—however it does it, the lead must grab hold of the audience.
Newspaper’s traditional inverted pyramid lead attempts to answer, in abbreviated form, most of the basic journalistic questions of a story: the who, what, where and when (and sometimes even why and how).
The inverted pyramid style has no place in broadcast journalism, and the broadcast lead has no real relationship to the print lead. The broadcast lead most closely parallels the newspaper headline, boldly demanding the audience’s attention. Think of the broadcast lead as the headline for the story.
If geometry helps in understanding structure, then while a newspaper story may be an inverted pyramid, the broadcast story is a circle. Although the lead is the most important part of the story, the last sentence of a broadcast story is the second most important. That doesn’t mean the last sentence contains the second most important bit of information in the story. It does mean that, structurally, the ending closes and completes the story, bringing it full circle.
Because newspapers’ inverted pyramid story form puts the most important information at the beginning and less important material at the end, it works well for both editors and readers. Editors can cut for length simply by chopping off the bottom of stories, and readers can stop reading a story at any point, knowing or sensing that what they haven’t read is less important than what they have. Most of the newspaper audience never reaches the end of a story. However, the newspaper model doesn’t work in broadcast. If our audience tires of a story, they can’t simply move on to the next one, as they can in the newspaper or online. We can’t afford to fade out; either our audience is with us for the whole story or they tune us out.
TYPES OF LEADS
There isn’t a single best kind of lead. What the story is about, how it fits into the newscast, who’s going to read it and what precedes it—all help determine each particular story’s best lead in a given newscast. And there are plenty of different kinds of leads to choose from. In most cases the reason the audience should care about the story is the story’s innate importance. In that case—in the majority of cases—start with a main point lead.
Hard Main Point Lead
Main point leads include four variations.
Hard main point leads tell what the story is about in an absolutely straightforward manner:
| HARD LEAD: | The state legislature voted overwhelmingly today to cut back school funding by 20 percent. |
This lead tells exactly what the story is. There’s no subtlety here, but it’s not designed for that. No lead gets you into the meat of the story as directly and quickly. A fairly simple story that’s on the air because of its importance to the audience will frequently work best with this kind of lead.
| HARD LEAD: | A chemical spill on the west side drove hundreds of people from their homes this afternoon. |
Soft Main Point Lead
Contrast that directness with the soft main point lead, which starts with what the story is generally about or the general impact of the story. Converted from a hard to a soft lead, the first lead above might look like this:
| SOFT LEAD: | School systems throughout the state may have a tough time getting by. The state legislature today voted … |
This kind of lead delays the real meat of the story by one line, substituting, at the top, a bottom-line sense of what it means. Notice that line two will almost always be a variation of the hard main point lead. So why slow down the details of the story? First, depending on available video, it might make more sense to start with the anchor on camera giving a sense of the story for a line before going to voiceover video with details in line two. Visually, that’s how most stories on TV start.
| VIDEO | AUDIO |
| Anchor CU | ((Anchor)) |
Two of the crack houses city police raided last night are owned by city police officers. |
|
| VO ENG | This one, on Main Street, … |
Second, the soft main point lead is an excellent way to start a complicated story. By stating the sense of the story, you make it easier for the audience to follow the twists and turns that may be involved in getting there.
| SOFT LEAD: | Another setback today in efforts to end the sanitation workers’ walkout. |
Throwaway Lead
Throwaway leads just introduce a subject using a short sentence or, more commonly, a sentence fragment. The throwaway lead version of that first lead might look like this:
| THROWAWAY LEAD: | Trouble for state school systems. The state legislature today voted |
A throwaway lead can give a general sense of the story, as the above example does, or it can create a general feeling or mood or just grab the audience’s attention:
| THROWAWAY LEAD: | An ominous warning tonight from police. |
Throwaway leads can be especially good for varying the pacing of a newscast—especially to speed it up—and provide a short bridge between related stories:
| THROWAWAY LEAD: | And another drive-by shooting tonight. |
Umbrella Lead
Umbrella leads are among the most underutilized techniques to help add coherence to a newscast. Where some group, government body, business, or individual has taken several significant actions, the umbrella lead can set up the audience for different aspects of a single story:
| UMBRELLA LEAD: | The state legislature today passed bills that will raise taxes, lower some salaries and change school funding. |
This approach tells the audience that you’re about to give them, in this example, three related stories, each of which must be told, start to finish, one at a time.
When an event will be covered from several angles, the umbrella lead can set up the audience for a series of reports:
Or the umbrella lead can connect different stories that have a common thread:
| UMBRELLA LEAD: | Three unrelated strikes have 50-thousand workers in the state walking picket lines. In Smithville … |
Delayed or Suspense Lead
The delayed or suspense lead works completely differently from any of the others. Typically, the entire story, including the lead, is told chronologically. For most stories, we relate information chronologically (if there is a chronology) after the lead. Here, the whole story is told chronologically, with the punch line or point of the story coming at the end:
| DELAYED LEAD: | John Smith drove to his job at Jones Trucking today - - just as he has every other day. He stopped at the nearby Brown Donut Shop - - as he has every morning. But today, just as he went in, he noticed another customer choking. Smith rushed over, administered the Heimlich maneuver - - pushing in on the man’s ribcage - - and saved the man’s life. Smith said he learned the technique during a short training session at lunch - - yesterday. |
Normally, we never use a name that is not widely known in a lead. The delayed or suspense lead is the exception. The audience should feel that there’s a reason they’re hearing this story, even if the exact reason isn’t made clear until the end. If the writing is tight, the story short, and the punch line worthwhile, the technique works. It won’t work for most stories, and it should be used sparingly for greatest effect.
Question Lead
The question lead is just what it says:
| QUESTION LEADM: | Why would you look for an elephant in a church? |
For a question lead to work, it either has to be sufficiently intriguing that the audience really wants the answer or a question that the audience will want to answer in the affirmative:
| QUESTION LEADM: | Do you want to make a lot more money? |
A question lead like the last one may get people’s attention, but if the story doesn’t support and answer the question logically, the audience will simply become annoyed.
Use question leads once every blue moon—perhaps less often. Most question leads exist because writers were too lazy to come up with anything else. Questions contain no information; you’re supposed to be answering questions, not asking them; and question leads sound more like commercials than news. Save the questions for teases and promos (see Chapter 21).
FIGURING OUT THE LEAD
The kind of lead that works best depends on the story. Hard leads tend to work best with hard, breaking stories. Others are more variable. The best newscasts mix different leads. Too many hard leads can make a newscast sound choppy and staccato. Too many soft leads will slow the pacing down and diminish some urgency in stories that should have it. Vary your leads.
What’s the Story About?
The most important parts of the writing process are the thinking and planning that take place before your fingers start dancing on the keyboard. Start by thinking, “What is the story about? Why is this story going on the air?” Ask yourself, “Who cares?” and “So what?” The answers to those questions should not only tell you how to write the story, but also answer the critical question of how to start it. The lead should usually be that brief headline you’d use if you were telling a friend about the item—although not quite as informally stated.
| GOOD LEAD: | Sunscreen … the stuff that’s supposed to protect you from cancer … may actually cause the disease. |
The lead tells us what the story is about … in a way that gets our attention.
| GOOD LEAD: | The mayor went to jail today … not as a prisoner but as an observer … to see for himself how serious a problem jail overcrowding has become. |
This last example looks like a long, complex sentence, but broken up the way it is—and read properly—it’s really a series of short fragments following a short, catchy sentence.
Say Something Meaningful
The lead must contribute to the telling of the story, including why the audience should care. With rare exceptions, meetings aren’t news. Don’t start the lead with them.
| AWFUL: | At its monthly meeting tonight, the city council … |
It might be news if the council didn’t meet, but sheer existence is rarely news. The lead should say something the council (or school board, organization, etc.) did that made the meeting sufficiently significant to justify air time.
| BETTER: | Good news for city workers. The city council tonight approved a five percent pay raise … |
In this case a soft main point lead tells us the essence of the story. The city council isn’t even mentioned in the lead; it’s in line two.
| WEAK: | If you think you are paying a lot for utilities - - News X has learned that some Ohio Valley residents may have to pay even more. |
The first phrase of this lead is completely meaningless and just delays telling people what the news is. First, everyone thinks they’re paying a lot for utilities. Second, the story isn’t about utilities in general, it’s about water rates, so the copy is too vague. Third, even if you don’t think you’re paying a lot for utilities, your water rates may go up. Keep it tighter and more direct.
| BETTER: | News X has learned that some Ohio Valley residents may have to pay more money for water. |
Keep It simple
Although all broadcast stories must answer the basic questions of who, what, where, when, why and how, don’t try to answer them all in the lead. You can’t have more than one important thought or idea per sentence, and the lead should be one of the shortest sentences in the story. Remove noncritical information that can wait until later; otherwise, you have the all-too-common overloaded lead. Break up the information.
| OVERLOADED: | Five people are being treated for smoke inhalation today after a two-alarm fire blamed on faulty wiring at a small office building on the south side. |
| BETTER: | Five people are being treated for smoke inhalation today after a two-alarm fire on the south side. Officials say faulty wiring at a small office building … |
Notice that we’ve used a hard main point lead to get right into the story. We’ve told the audience what happened, and, critically, we’ve made clear in the lead that it happened here. Other aspects are dealt with only in skeletal form.
| OVERLOADED: | Thousands of Detroit students and school teachers are waiting in limbo on the outcome of negotiations between building engineers and school officials. |
Remember: Keep leads short, and save the detail for later. Not only does the sentence above (which went on the air) try to give way too much information in the lead, it also understates numbers and improperly shifts the focus of the story from the larger group of students and teachers to the much smaller group of school officials and engineers.
| BETTER: | Tens of thousands of Detroit students and teachers are waiting to see whether there’s school tomorrow. |
Again, we’ve used a hard main point lead. The story is on the air because it’s significant to a large number of people in the audience, so a straightforward—but tight—statement of fact is all you need.
Start with New News
The saying goes, “Three-quarters of news is new.” Keep that in mind as you work on the lead. No story is on the air because of background and history. It’s on the air now because of something that just happened. That’s what you need to tell the audience in the lead. Background and history—if used at all—come later. There is a natural tendency to want to start with background and history. Resist that. That’s not why the story is on the air now.
| OLD NEWS: | A district court judge found a local man guilty of murder two weeks ago. Today, John Smith was sentenced to … |
| NEW NEWS: | A local man was sentenced to. … [then you can talk about the trial and the crime] |
| OLD NEWS: | The Coast Guard rescued two men from the freezing waters off Point Falcon last night. |
| NEW NEWS: | Two men are hospitalized in good condition today - - after the Coast Guard pulled the pair from the freezing waters off Point Falcon last night. |
Don’t reminisce. Don’t start a story with a phrase like You may remember, followed inevitably by a recap of the earlier story. Some of the audience will remember, but most probably will not—either because it didn’t make that much of an impression or because they didn’t see it at all. Regardless, you still have to recap, so why start the story with a weak lead that simply asks the audience to try to remember old news? Instead, work harder to come up with a strong lead for today’s story and then note that it’s a follow-up with a phrase like We first told you about. If all else fails and you can’t come up with a strong, fresh lead, then fall back on
| SO-SO LEAD: | A follow-up tonight to a story we first told you about … |
At least this lead says at the top that the audience is going to learn something new, and the audience likes follow-up stories.
Focus on People
Our audience is made up of people, and, generally, what they care most about are themselves and other people.
Notice that this story’s lead focuses on people who sell cell phones and ends with homeowners concerned about property values. You can choose to focus on cell phones and the narrow issue of the few people who market them—as the writer of this copy did—or the wider issue of property values that could affect much of the audience.
| BETTER: | Some north side residents say a local business [or high technology or a cell phone company] is threatening to destroy the value of their property. |
In addition to getting to the point of the bigger and more important story faster, the second version also properly shifts the focus of the story from technology to people—and will allow us to start video of the story in line two with either people (first choice) or a new tower (second choice).
Focus on Local
Your audience cares most about news that’s closest to them. Unless you’re writing for a network, that means local—local people, local issues, local events. If you’re writing a story with both local and national implications, generally, focus on local first.
| NO-NATIONAL LEAD: | Unemployment rose sharply, nationwide, last month. |
| YES-LOCAL LEAD: | Unemployment rose sharply here last month. |
Both stories would likely contain the same information; the issue is what goes first. Understandably, the local audience cares a lot more about what’s going on in their own community and with their friends and neighbors than about a faceless mass elsewhere. Start a mixed local/national story with the local part first.
Put Location in the Lead
Always make clear in the lead where a story is from.
| NO: | Three people have died in a nightclub fire earlier this evening. |
| NO: | A gunman entered an elementary school and started firing today. |
Where did those things happen? The audience is likely to assume that they’re local stories. If that’s the case, make that clear in the lead so there’s no confusion.
| YES: | Three people have died in a downtown nightclub fire this evening. |
| or | |
| Three people have died in a nightclub fire here this evening. | |
| YES: | Officials at Smith Elementary School in Cityville say it was a miracle no one was hurt. A gunman … |
In all those examples the audience knows right away that they’re hearing about a local story. If the stories are not local and you didn’t make that clear in the lead, you’re likely to have an audience that rightly feels angry and betrayed. If the story is not local, tell people that.
| YES: | Three people have died in a nightclub fire in Rochester tonight. |
| YES: | A gunman entered an elementary school in San Diego and started firing today. |
In both of those cases you have no one in the audience panicking, thinking that it might be a local story (assuming, of course, that the audience isn’t in Rochester in the first example and San Diego in the second).
Keep in mind that there are lots of ways to include that mandatory locator in the lead. For stories in your area, the choices include not only the name of the city, community or neighborhood, but also words like downtown, here, locally, nearby and so on.
Be direct and to the point
Don’t back into a story. Give the audience a reason to care right from the beginning.
| BACKING IN: | An interesting thing happened at the city council meeting last night. |
The only thing being said in the line above is that you’re going to tell the audience something meaningful in the future. We can’t afford to waste that much time or be that boring.
Envision a busy audience taking time out of their day to find out what happened. Just tell them.
| BACKING IN: | A homemade single engine plane crashed nose-first into some Delaware farmland today. It exploded into flames, and the pilot, James Smith of Columbus, and his passenger, Tom Jones of Powell, were killed. |
Although there are advantages to telling a story in chronological order, this story takes the idea too far. Buried at the end of the long, second sentence is the real news: Two people died. The plane crash is how that news happened, but the real news involves the two men who died, not the crash itself.
| BETTER: | Two local men are dead after the homemade plane they were flying crashed into a Delaware farm and exploded. |
Notice, again, the use of a hard main point lead to get across the main point of the story. It tells the audience what happened and how. Again, the lead makes clear that the story is local. It also doesn’t use the names of the men in the lead but sets up the use of the names in line two. If one or both of the men were well known in the area, the lead might include that information.
Save the Name for Later
Unless the person the story is about is extremely well known (such as the president, the local mayor, or a popular celebrity) or you’re using a delayed lead, don’t include the name in the lead. The answer to the question who? must be in the lead, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we need the name. Generally, it’s better to use a brief description (e.g., a union leader, two office workers, a local woman) in the lead to set up the actual name(s) for early in line two:
| SET UP NAMES FOR LINE TWO: | Police have arrested an unemployed truck driver for yesterday’s robbery at the Jones Trucking Company. Police say John Smith went in to see his former employer armed with … |
A man charged with robbing, raping and then murdering a local teenager went on trial today. David Jones sat silently … |
In both the previous examples the lead described the subject of the story, but the actual name—the detail of the name—didn’t appear until line two. This helps keep the lead shorter and tighter. If the audience is not familiar with the person, the name is just detail that we can save for later.
Save the day and date for Later
Don’t start the lead with the day or date unless it’s the critical part of the story. Always have the date somewhere in the story, usually in the lead sentence, but remember that almost all stories we report happened today—that’s not news.
| NO: | This morning, dozens of police officers called in sick in what’s believed to be the latest attack of the “blue flu.” |
| YES: | Dozens of police officers called in sick this morning, in what’s believed to be the latest attack of the “blue flu.” |
Sometimes, especially in the morning news, at noon and in the late news, we want to emphasize the time of day to demonstrate how timely the story is. “This morning” might work at the top of a story or two in the morning or noon news, and “tonight” might work at the beginning of a story on the late news. But if story after story starts that way, then the impact is lost.
Update Leads
Update leads whenever possible. Frequently, the future effect of an earlier action makes a lead sound more timely and interesting.
| OLDER: | The city council last night voted to increase property tax rates. |
| UPDATED: | Property tax bills will be going up. |
| OLDER: | The fire that began at an industrial complex yesterday continues to burn. |
| UPDATED: | The smell and smoke from tons of burning plastic continue to blanket the south side. |
Responsibility
If you’re unsure whether to use a clever lead, a delayed lead or anything other than a main point lead—don’t. A lot of tasteless journalism has been on the air because someone picked the wrong time to be clever or cute. You’ll never go wrong with a well-written main point lead. You may have missed an opportunity to do something a little different, but you won’t embarrass yourself or your news organization. If the lead doesn’t demand something a little different, proceed with caution.
| NEVER: | The two sides are practically killing each other over whether a woman has a right to an abortion. |
You can get the attention of the audience by either shouting or whispering. Shouting is easier, but it isn’t nearly as riveting.
TYPES OF ENDINGS
Not only do broadcast stories need to start strong, they need to end that way, too. We bring them full circle; we wrap them up. We are, in the end, telling the audience stories, and a good story always has a beginning, a middle and an end. Think about how you’re going to wrap up the story at the same time you think about how you’re going to start. In television, where stand-up bridges are recorded at the scene, reporters really need to figure out, at least generally, how they’re going to structure the whole story even as they’re covering it.
Future Ramification Close
Probably the best ending—and one of the most common—is the future ramification close:
Smith says they’ll appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
This kind of ending tells us where the story goes from here. If the facts you’re dealing with include that kind of information, this will almost always be the strongest ending.
Jones says no matter what the council decides, he’ll never give in.
Part of what makes the future ramification close so strong is that there’s almost never any doubt that you’ve wrapped up and ended the story.
Summary Point Close
The summary point ending restates, in different words, what the story is all about:
What it all means is that food prices are likely to stay just about where they are.
This kind of ending is particularly useful in a complicated story in which at least some of the audience might have gotten lost in the data. Frequently, a story started with a soft main point lead because of its complexity will work best with a summary point ending. Just make sure, in restating the sense of the lead, that you change the exact wording.
All the legislators we talked to said schools should expect lean times and layoffs for the foreseeable future.
Information Close
Some endings close the story with a new, related bit of information:
The airline carries more than a million passengers a month.
The information ending tends to add some general perspective to the story. But be careful in an information ending that you don’t raise new questions instead of closing the story.
| PROBLEM: | This is another in a series of problems the airline has had all year. |
Ending a story like that will drive the audience crazy, wondering about what those other problems have been. Bring the story to a clear conclusion; don’t raise new issues.
Opposition point of View Close
The opposition point of view may end a story:
But opponents argue that the new law won’t work and will only make things worse.
Be careful with this kind of close, too. Because you’re leaving the audience with a different point of view than you focused on for the story, you may elevate a minor point to undeserved prominence. If the story is long enough, it’s generally better to raise opposition points inside the story. Above all, be fair, and don’t use this kind of ending as a means of furthering your own point of view.
Punch Line
The last type of ending is the punch line. A story that uses a delayed or suspense lead (see delayed lead earlier in this section on page 74) always ends with a punch line. The punch line is typically the unexpected twist in the story that puts everything into perspective.
SUMMARY
The broadcast lead is like the newspaper headline; above all else, it must capture the attention and interest of the audience. There are four main point leads: hard, soft, throwaway and umbrella. The two other types of leads are delayed or suspense and the question lead. To figure out the lead, figure out what the story is really about, what’s new and focus on people and local. Put some form of locator in the lead, but don’t include names of people who aren’t well known. Because all broadcast stories must come to a close, the ending is the second most important line in the story. The five types of endings are future ramification close, summary point, information, opposition point of view and the punch line.
KEY WORDS & PHRASES
main point lead
hard lead
soft lead
throwaway
umbrella lead
delayed or suspense lead
question lead
start with new news
focus on people
focus on local
put location in the lead
save the name for later
future ramification close
summary point
information close
opposition point of view close
punch line
EXERCISES
A. The following sentences have errors and/or words, phrases or means of expression not acceptable for broadcast writing. Make them into acceptable broadcast leads. Again, for the sake of this assignment, you’re in Springfield.
1. Janice R. Hennessy, Associate State Commissioner of the State Liquor Commission, has called for a new crackdown on underage drinking.
2. The mayor said that, “I think it is counterproductive to have the state take away funding from urban renewal programs here when it is clear that the benefits of the program, in producing new tax revenue from buildings formerly costing the city money in upkeep and now generating dollars by being in private hands, clearly outweighs the cost.”
3. An extremely serious car accident last night resulted in 6 injured and
2 dead.
4. A low interest loan by Samuel J. Clarke to a member of the County Commission that for the past 3 weeks has been considering his request for a zoning variance appeared today—when information about the loan was first released—to raise questions of propriety and ethical behavior and jeopardize his already-questionable zoning variance request in more uncertainty.
5. The Fire Department’s arson squad head says the severity of last Tuesday’s fire at the Smith General Store, Incorporated, in which
3 customers were hurt and 1 fireman died, has been traced to a broken sprinkler system in the building.
6. Last evening, not long following the unsuccessful negotiations with the city council broke off, local city workers voted then to begin striking against the city this morning.
7. FBI agent Mary Smith said this morning that the Union Bank and Trust, Incorporated, of 200 West University Ave., lost $2,500 to burglars some time around 4 a.m. in the morning.
8. In it’s regular weekly session this afternoon, the Long Beach City Council discussed in a heated manner what would become of the Westminster Nursing Home project.
9. There was a lot of activity last night if you were a Springfield fireman. A house fire on the east side left two families homeless tonight in a fire that took firemen 2 hours to control, while near downtown, three families lost their homes and a fireman collapsed and was taken to the hospital.
10. Three innocent bystanders and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives were shot by an unidentified man with a gun at a campaign rally for the Congress person this morning in front of the entrance to the Colorado State Park. The bystanders all died, and the Congress member is in critical condition.