It's not homophone equivocation. "Lede" is obsolete, and for some reason people started using lede instead of lead. Lead has been in use for this for longer tha

It's not homophone equivocation. "Lede" is obsolete, and for some reason people started using lede instead of lead. Lead has been in use for this for longer than lead. > lede > obs. variant of lead n. and v. > lede > variant of leed 1, Obs. language. Earlier uses of "Lead": > lead, n. 2 > f. 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. Quot. 1947 refers to a radio news broadcast. > 1927: Amer. Speech II. 241 “`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.” > 1947: Hansard, Commons 19 Dec. 2113 “There is what one calls the `lead', which is..the first item.” Note that the Webster link says https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-versus-lead https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-... > Our earliest examples of 'lede' come from the 1970s, around the time that Linotype machines began disappearing from newsrooms.