Welcome back. In our last lesson, we explored the crucial partnership between a creative lead and its supporting nut graf, seeing how they work together to form a compelling opening. We analyzed how this one-two punch functions. Today, we shift from analysis to judgment.
This lesson focuses on a core skill for any writer or editor: evaluating a lead's effectiveness. Your learning outcome is to evaluate a lead's effectiveness based on its hook, clarity, and relevance to the story. You will learn to diagnose why an opening succeeds or fails, a critical step that must come before any attempt to revise or rewrite. By the end of this session, you'll have a clear framework for assessing the quality of any lead you encounter, including your own.
1. The Three Pillars of an Effective Lead
A strong lead doesn't happen by accident. It successfully balances three essential qualities: the hook, clarity, and relevance. Think of these as the three legs of a stool—if one is weak, the whole structure becomes unstable.
- The Hook: This is the lead's primary job—to grab the reader's attention and create a sense of urgency or curiosity. It's the element that stops them from scrolling or turning the page. In the digital age, this is more critical than ever.
- Clarity: A good lead isn't just attention-grabbing; it's also clear. It must be concise and easy to understand, setting a direction for the story without causing confusion. The reader should have a general sense of what the article is about, even if the creative approach withholds some key details for the nut graf.
- Relevance: The lead must be appropriate for the story it introduces, the publication it appears in, and the audience it's trying to reach. A quirky, anecdotal lead might be perfect for a feature profile in Rolling Stone, but out of place for a breaking news story on a wire service.
The Basics of Feature Writing (Journalism Lecture)
In this video from "The Basics of Feature Writing," the speaker discusses several key questions to ask when developing a story. These questions are at the heart of evaluating a lead's relevance.
Watch the section from "ask yourself". The speaker asks, "Is it of interest to the audience? ... What makes the story worthy of being reported?" These questions are fundamental to judging whether your chosen lead is relevant to a wider audience, or just self-indulgent.
An effective lead finds the sweet spot where a compelling hook delivers a clear idea with compelling relevance to the reader.
2. Developing Your "Bad Lead Radar"
One of the fastest ways to learn what makes a lead good is to study what makes one bad. By recognizing common mistakes, you can build a "bad lead radar" to spot ineffective openings.
Chapter 8: Leads – Broccoli and Chocolate: A Beginner's Guide to ...
The textbook chapter "Broccoli and Chocolate" provides an excellent, straightforward list of lead types to avoid. Internalizing these will sharpen your evaluation skills.
Read the section titled "Lead to Avoid" at the end of the chapter. Pay close attention to the explanations for why each type—like the "Duh Lead," "Question Lead," and "Quote Lead"—is ineffective.
These "leads to avoid" fail on one or more of our three pillars.
- A "Duh Lead" ("The City Council held a meeting...") has no hook and states the obvious.
- A "Question Lead" ("Do you think textbooks are too expensive?") is often a lazy hook and lacks the clarity of a declarative statement.
- A "Quote Lead" often lacks the context to be clear or relevant, confusing the reader from the start.
Let's watch a video that reinforces these points and adds a few more common pitfalls.
Journalism 101: How to write a lead
In "Journalism 101: How to write a lead," which we've used before, Mark Grabowski details several types of bad leads that he often sees from young journalists.
Watch the section from bad leads. He covers quote leads, question leads, and topical leads, explaining why they are weak. Then, he discusses obvious, wordy, and definition-based leads. Note his emphasis on avoiding leads that are lazy or state something the reader already knows.
Here is a summary of common pitfalls that violate our evaluation criteria:
| Pitfall | Fails On... | Why It's Ineffective |
|---|---|---|
| Topical/Duh Lead | Hook | States a topic or obvious fact, but provides no actual news or reason to care. Ex: "A press conference was held yesterday." |
| Question Lead | Hook, Clarity | Puts the work on the reader. Good writing provides answers, not lazy questions. Ex: "Ever wonder what it's like to be famous?" |
| Quote Lead | Clarity, Relevance | Lacks context. The reader doesn't know who is speaking or why their words are important. |
| Cliche Lead | Hook | Uses over-worn phrases that signal unoriginal thinking. Ex: "It was a match made in heaven..." |
| Wordy/Buried Lead | Hook, Clarity | Takes too long to get to the point, burying the interesting information under unnecessary phrases. |
3. Putting Evaluation into Practice
Now, let's analyze some leads using our three pillars: Hook, Clarity, and Relevance.
Example 1: Weak Lead
LOS ANGELES — The cast of the new Marvel movie "Eternals" appeared at the film's world premiere on Monday night.
- Hook: Very weak. This is a "Duh Lead." It states an obvious, predictable event. There is no surprise or curiosity.
- Clarity: The sentence is clear, but it's not compelling.
- Relevance: While the topic is relevant to entertainment journalism, the execution is poor. It conveys no new or interesting information.
Example 2: Strong Lead
LOS ANGELES — In the end, Robert Alton Harris seemed determined to go peacefully, a trait that had eluded him in the 39 violent and abusive years he spent on earth. (Sam Stanton, The Sacramento Bee)
- Hook: Excellent. The contrast between going "peacefully" and a life of violence creates immediate tension and makes you want to know what happened.
- Clarity: Crystal clear. It tells you the subject (Robert Alton Harris) and the core theme of the story (the contradiction of his life and death).
- Relevance: High. It establishes the stakes and the central human drama of the story from the very first sentence.
Now, let's look at a resource that compiles several outstanding leads.
How to Write a Lead: 10 Do's, 10 Don'ts, 10 Good Examples
This article from ClearVoice provides ten powerful examples of effective leads from real publications. Analyzing them will help solidify your understanding of what makes an opening work.
Read the section "10 Worthy Examples of Good Lead Writing." For each example, ask yourself: What creates the hook? Is it surprise, emotion, humor, or something else? How does it maintain clarity while being creative? How does it establish relevance?
Notice how these examples, like Edna Buchanan's famous lead "Gary Robinson died hungry," achieve maximum impact with minimum words. They perfectly balance a compelling hook with absolute clarity and relevance.
4. Your Turn: Evaluate the Leads
It's time to put your "bad lead radar" to the test. Your task is to act as an editor.
- Go to an entertainment news website you respect, such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Vulture, or Rolling Stone.
- Find one feature story or review whose lead you believe is highly effective.
- Find one article whose lead you believe is weak or ineffective.
- For each lead, copy it and write a brief, 2-3 sentence evaluation based on its hook, clarity, and relevance.
Example of what to submit:
Effective Lead from The Washington Post: "Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang."
Evaluation: This lead has a phenomenal hook based on shocking, blunt language. Its clarity is absolute, and its relevance is perfect for a column about a public figure who just embarrassed himself on the world stage. It's provocative and sets a clear, critical tone.
Ineffective Lead from a fictional blog: "Fall is a season that many people enjoy for its crisp air and changing leaves, and it's also a big time for new movie releases."
Evaluation: This lead has no hook; it's a "water is wet" statement that tells the reader something they already know. While clear, its relevance is weak because it fails to provide any specific or newsworthy angle, making it boring and easy to skip.
This exercise will train you to actively assess writing, not just passively consume it—a crucial skill for elevating your own craft.
Conclusion
Today we transformed your perspective on leads from that of a reader to that of a critic. You now have a robust framework for judging whether an article's opening accomplishes its mission.
Key Takeaways:
- An effective lead must be evaluated on three criteria: its hook (does it grab attention?), its clarity (is it easy to understand?), and its relevance (is it right for the story and audience?).
- Recognizing common mistakes—like topical leads, question leads, and quote leads—helps you quickly identify ineffective writing.
- Evaluating leads is a diagnostic skill; it's about understanding why a piece of writing works or doesn't.
In our next lesson, we'll take the logical next step. Now that you can identify a weak lead and articulate why it fails, you will learn how to rewrite a weak lead by identifying and highlighting a more compelling angle or detail.