The first sentence does the heaviest work. A lead—sometimes spelled lede—is the opening of a news story that summarizes the central facts or hooks the reader into the narrative.

Hard-news leads answer the essential questions in a single tight paragraph. Feature leads may set a scene or introduce a character before revealing the news value. In either case the lead determines whether a busy reader continues.

Writing a strong lead requires knowing what matters most and resisting the urge to front-load secondary detail. Editors often rewrite leads more than any other part of a draft. A precise lead makes the rest of the story easier to structure and easier to read.

• Opening sentence or paragraph of a news story
• Summarizes key facts or draws the reader in
• Differs in style between hard news and features
• Frequently refined during editing