Lede

You sometimes see bloggers using the journalism term lede, as in the title of this New York Times blog The Lede. The lede (pronounced to rhyme with greed) refers to the opening lines of an article, the lines that set the topic and capture the readers' interest. The same word is also spelled lead. There's an old journalism aphorism "don't bury the lede."

It really is the word lead, as in the verb "to lead"; OED identifies the noun lead, n.2, derived from the verb "to lead," and meaning 1f:

Journalism. A summary or outline of a newspaper story; a guide to a story that needs further development or exploration; the first (often the most important) item in an issue, bulletin, etc. Cf. lead story, etc., under sense 11b below.

The OED then offers an example from 1927 and American Speech II: " 'Lead'. . . is used as a noun to refer to the initial summary of the story, or as a verb to instruct the printer what to put first (p. 241). "

What appears to be going on is that early twentieth century journalists, in an effort to avoid confusing printers began to use the archaic spelling of lede to distinguish the "opening lines of an article" from references to lead, in the context of leading, the strips of the metal lead used to provide empty space between lines of text when setting type. We still use "leading" to refer to line spacing in setting type in the digital world, just as bloggers are careful to not bury their lede in the middle of a post.