www.alphadictionary.com

OnlineED says the term is often used to replace lead as in the first sentence of a news story. Famously. The lead sentence of a straight (as opposed to sports, opinion, etc.) news story should answer the six questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how. In the inverted pyramid style, that summary sentence is followed by the most important facts in descending order of importance. Thus, in laying out the paper, the printer can simply cut off whatever he needs to fit the space without taking time to assess or rearrange the story.

This morning I read an opinion piece in which the author near the end made her point and said she had "buried the lede." That's a frequent use of the new spelling. OED suggests it arose in 1965 to distinguish between the words and the lead type they were set in. Anyone have more info?

I've been wondering about this one myself for quite some time, so I do hope someone out there has more of a clue than I do.

After reading what The Word Detective has to say about the difference I decided that the word was to narrowly defined and archaic.

Whateveer the source, it would be written, not oral. In "Let the lede lead the story" both the words are pronounced identically. One rational explanation is that "lede" can only mean the first sentence, unless buried...