Two special leads

1. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/21/hotel.fall.ap/index.html
-- Just a month after his 16-story fall and merciful landing onto a hotel overhang, Joshua Hanson is off crutches from a broken leg, mostly healed from his other injuries and thankful he has no memory of the plunge.
"I feel really lucky I don't remember it because I probably would have some pretty serious nightmares," said the 29-year-old bar owner from Blair, Wisconsin, who crashed out a hotel window January 20 after a night drinking with his friends.
"I'm walking without a crutch, I'm getting around pretty good. I mean, I feel really good," Hanson said Tuesday after a couple weeks of recuperation at his parents' home

I think that this is a narrative lead. The first part of the story focuses on how he is thankful that he has no memory of the fall, not about the specifics and the five W's. I think that this lead is good for this story because it catches people's attention. It is more interesting and more personal then just stating the facts. I think that a statacco lead would be very interesting, maybe with interjections about how he felt when he fell. That would attract readers as well. I think that a special lead, in this case, is better than a regular lead because it garners more human interest.

2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17031907/
Before Britney Spears was cutting her hair off, she was pulling it out.

This is an example of a compare and contrast lead. It uses the words "cutting..off' and "pulling...out" as contrast to attract the reader. The lead is very catchy and simple, and encourages the reader to continue on with the story. Later in the story it says the possible reasons why she shaved her head and also has a source from a friend of Spears. Other leads that could work for this story could include a question lead or even a quote lead. An example of a question could directly ask why she cut all of her hair off, and then answer it in a following paragraph. A quote lead could work as well, if there was a source close to her that went on record as to why exactly she cut all of her hair off.