The dead in addition to Lieutenant Caffee are:
(List of the dead follows, then a detailed story half a column in length.)
(Note that all the essential questions are answered in this lead: Who? “Four men,” giving names. What? “Killed.” When? “To-day.” Where? “At the Indian Head Proving Grounds.” The cause of the explosion was not determined, but the writer tells succinctly how the men were killed.)
II. Contrast the foregoing method with that of the following lead from the Kansas City _Star_, in which a dramatic situation is emphasized by holding the interest suspended. (The names are fictitious):
The word rang distinctly in the clear air yesterday afternoon. A party of golf players watched a ball which went whizzing through the air from No. 4 to No. 5 hole on the golf links at Swope Park. Almost in their line of vision a puff of smoke went into the air. The faint sound of a shot reached them. They saw a man fall.
John Smith, formerly a clerk for the Blank Brothers Coal Company, had shot and mortally wounded himself. Scores of golfers and other persons walking about the park rushed to the spot where Smith had fallen. The first to reach him was Mrs. J. W. Jones of 10 A street, who had been strolling about the park with her four children. She heard the revolver shot and saw Smith fall. The bullet had entered his head near the right temple and passed through.
(The story continues to the extent of a column.)
(This story illustrates what has been said of the tendency, as regards news of secondary importance, to work toward, rather than from, the climax. A news lead of the type in I would have contained the fact of the suicide in the first sentence. Note the effect of the short sentences.)
III. The lead of another suicide story from the same newspaper in which the method is more conventional:
After suffering from acute rheumatism that had rendered him helpless three years, confining him to his home and necessitating his retirement from active business, John W. Williams, 50 years old, ended his life at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon in his apartments at 20 West street by a revolver shot.
(All the essential facts about the story are here told in a nutshell. The lead could have stood as a complete story had space requirements demanded that the succeeding paragraphs be “killed.”)