"What's the lead?" is a question you often hear in journalism. But what exactly is a lead? You know when you ask someone who loves to tell a story to get straight to the point? Well, that's what you want to know right away: the lead in journalism!
The lead is responsible for answering essential questions to tell the whole story in a concise way. The need to start a story with the most important information is also largely due to the time allotted for consuming news. Not every story holds your attention until the very last word, right?!
That's why the inverted pyramid writing model has proven so important in journalism. In it, the beginning of the text, the famous lead, must answer the secondary questions: What? Who? When? Where? How? Why? After that comes the moment to complement the story with whatever else has been investigated. It's time to present secondary data and details to the reader.
But be careful!
Not all journalistic texts will work with this inverted pyramid structure. This format is more commonly seen in everyday news, the kind consumed quickly, whether on TV or in print newspapers.
But some cases allow for a freer use, so to speak, of journalistic language. It's very common to read profiles, texts by literary journalists, or even major reports that don't immediately give away the ending! Here, we rely heavily on good old common sense to assess how far it's possible to abuse this creative freedom and avoid using our beloved lead.
Journalism vs. Marketing
These two areas of communication use the same term, but Don't get confused.However, the meanings are VERY different. In marketing, a lead represents a potential customer. There are several ways to identify and acquire qualified leads using marketing strategies.
O use of data in marketing It allows you to map out paths within campaigns in order to reach the final sales goal even faster, because you'll already know who you're talking to!
