So, is 'lede' an alternate spelling, or what?

Oftentimes, a news outlet has to consolidate a story into a mere sentence or two, crunching down dozens of facts about an important event into just a few words. The reasons are many, but the effect is always the same: a brilliantly concise declaration of as much information as possible, in as few words as possible.

One common use for this story compression is to create a Summary Lead, which is basically the opening of a news article. A lead is used to grab the readers attention, while simultaneously giving them the most important details of the story.

A good example of a lead is found in the Sun article "Pratt St. plan gets mixed reviews." The lead follows:

"A prominent Baltimore developer says the city's planned $100 million makeover of a 16-block section of Pratt Street is not feasible and would exacerbate existing traffic problems and oversaturate an already ailing downtown with retail space."

This sentence gives some (but not all) of the salient details of the story: Who said What, but not Where, How, or When. The Why of the statement may be implicit: "Because that's how he feels."

A Short Report, meanwhile, is similar to a lead in many ways. It gets as many details as possible into an even smaller space than a lead. It differs mainly in that a short report is usually in present tense, rather than past.

A short report comes in a variety of forms, including screen crawlers, newspaper briefs, and even broadcast news bulletins. The following short report was taken from the Baltimore Sun webpage: "Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch to be acquired by Bank of America."

This sentence gives the most important details of these nationally significant financial events: The Who and the What. Again, the When, How, and Why are missing, while the Where is implied to be merely wherever Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch are headquartered. If that's even worth pointing out.