The beginning of your story is just as, if not more, important than the end. When it comes to telling a story for news reporting, one must know how to properly tell a story, beginning with the lede.
When it comes to ledes, there are different routes that writers can take. A few lede types covered in this week’s material were
Anecdotal Ledes
Contract Ledes
Summary Ledes
Hard vs Soft Ledes
Direct vs Delayed Ledes
Anecdotal, Contract, and Summary ledes were all introduced in the Types of Leads Video provided by professor Vareberg for this week.
If you missed it, check out the following video to learn about these three types of ledes:
While I'm sure you already viewed the video, I figured it would be effective to include that in this post for point of reference. Let's quickly review the proposed points:
Summary Ledes
The Summary Lede is most commonly used in news writing and works to present the simply facts of who, what, where, and when. Breaking news stories often include this type of lede as to present information in the fastest way possible.
Anecdotal Ledes
The Anecdotal Lede is most commonly used for human interest stories. This type of lede works to appeal to human emotions and connect readers with the story.
Contract Ledes
The Contract Lede is a different sort of lede. This lede is formulated to use opposite ides or facts to grab the attention of readers.
While Professor Vareberg placed a focus of Hard vs Soft Ledes and Direct vs Delayed Ledes, I wanted to see how those four can compare and contrast to Summary, Anecdotal, and Contract Ledes.
A short break-down to refresh your mind from this week's lecture:
Hard Ledes stress immediacy and the concept of getting information out as soon as possible.
Soft Ledes stress human interest and don't find the direct release of information to be essential.
Direct Ledes project essential information in the opening paragraph.
Delayed Ledes delay the essential information to the end or throughout the piece.
My question for you today is:
How do Summary, Anecdotal, and Contract ledes compare to those discussed within the lecture?
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References
American English. (2020, Jan.) Types of Leads. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ugNRIt8DdA&t=242s
Vareberg, Kyle. [Kyle Vareberg]. (2021, Mar.) Week 11 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elgSnjdLtKs
Great informational post! To answer your question, I also feel all these ledes are interchangeable as "ksizzle" posted lol. It all depends on the reader and what they look for in a story. I asked the question in one of my previous blog post, what were people's favorite types of stories to read about, and the answers varied. So it all depends on the reader, different strokes for different folks!
Hannah,
I liked how you touched on Summary, Anecdotal, and contract ledes as well as the main four that were discussed. To answer your question I believe that these 3 ledes can be interchangeable with the main 4 ledes. As you mentioned, anecdotal ledes tend to focus on human interest and appeal to people's emotions. This can also be true in soft news ledes. I believe that many ledes can fit into multiple categories. Really good post and question!
-Kurt Simmons