[CyberAnt]

Well .. IT USED TO BE “LED” - AND TO “LEAD” SOMEONE IS SPELLED WITH THE “A”.

Such as: I led her to her chair.

or: I will lead her down the stairs.

[SAJ]

Another case of the same combination of letters having usage as several parts of speech, in this case verb and adjective and noun.

1) 'Led' is the simple past tense of the verb 'to lead', sounded with a long 'e'.

2) 'Lead', sounded with a long 'e', as in 'lead paragraph' is an adjective. 'Lede' is simply a piece of newspaper industry jargon.

3) 'Lead', sounded with a short 'e', is the metal having chemical symbol Pb.

[Bob]

Well .. IT USED TO BE “LED” - AND TO “LEAD” SOMEONE IS SPELLED WITH THE “A”.

Such as: I led her to her chair.

or: I will lead her down the stairs.

While both of your examples are correct English grammar, in newspaper terminology, the 'lede' is the most important part of the story.

From wikipedia:

Burying the lede

In news style writing, burying the lede is beginning a piece with details of secondary importance to the reader, while postponing more essential points of fact or narration.

The spelling "bury the lead" is also common, but "lede" is a traditional variation which avoids ambiguity with the chemical element lead (historically used in printing).

Wikipedia article