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Video

Video 1: BBC journalism skills: Principles of good writing for news

Description: Make sure you have something to say, choose your language carefully, and write clearly and simply. Allan Little is a BBC special correspondent and presenter.

Video 2: Journalism 101: How to write a lead

Description: Journalism Professor Mark Grabowski explains how to write good leads for your stories. This 30-minute lesson covers summary leads, delayed identification leads and creative leads.

Video 3: The inverted pyramid song (humorous)

Description: Greg Bowers on banjolele and Clint Alwahab on kazoo perform The Inverted Pyramid Song. Very cute reminder that most readers like the good stuff on top.

Web

Web 1: A look at some of sports journalism’s best leads

Description: It’s what we were taught in Journalism 101, along with the five “W’s.” Get it up high, make it interesting, grab the reader right away. The lead--or “lede,” as some newspaper copy desks inexplicably write it--is a part of every journalist’s culture. We learned about the importance of that opening paragraph, and then were fed examples that have become part of our DNA.