What is lead?

Within a lead in a news article or story is the five W's; who, what, where, when, why and sometimes how.  These answer some of the questions that people generally want to know right at the beginning of an article as to catch the readers attention.  Generally, leads do not begin with the 'when', but usually comes towards the end of the lead in the possible second or third sentence of the article.  The 'when' could be considered as general information that goes within the new story.

Detailed information that should be included in the lead of an article is information about the 'who' of your story.  This will interest the readers of the story because people love hearing about others life especially in the lifestyle we lead nowadays.  The 'where' is also an important factor in the lead.  This is because the closer something is to home, or the more local, the more the audience is going to be interested.  If there is, for example, a plane crash in California and there was a resident from the Minneapolis aboard the plane then newspapers may include a story about the passenger from Minneapolis.  The 'what' of a story is also something that should be included in the lead because it ties the 'who' into the story and why they are important the article.

If the story that is being written is going to be included in a magazine and may not be straightforward hard-news than the lead may not be as short and simple as one for a newspaper.  The author of the article can take more time to introduce what they will be talking about to the reader.  The five W's may be left out in for the first few sentences or may even be placed in the second or third paragraph of the magazine article.  Writing more feature news allows for the author to be more mysterious in the beginning of their article instead of grabbing the attention of the reader right away because they know that the reader will continue to read the article no matter what.