Lead Length and Voice in U.S. Newspapers

Gerald Stone [WJMCR 3:2 March 2000] Sections:  Abstract|Introduction|Literature Review|HypothesesMethodology|Results|Conclusions and Readability Abstract Do U.S. newspapers still adhere to the principle of writing short, active-voice leads? Leads in a large sample of staff-written articles averaged 23.5 words regardless of publication frequency, circulation size or whether the story was written on deadline, and about 70% were active-voice. While […]