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Feature Writing: What It Is and How to Do It Right

By Happy Sharer

Introduction

Feature writing is a form of journalism that focuses on telling stories in depth. It is used to inform readers about interesting topics and give them a deeper understanding of events and people. Feature writing combines elements of storytelling, research, and interviews to create compelling articles that engage readers and allow them to explore a topic in greater detail. This article will discuss what feature writing is, why it is important, and how to craft successful feature pieces.

Exploring the Definition and Benefits of Feature Writing

Before jumping into how to write a feature article, let’s first take a look at what feature writing actually is. A feature article is a longer piece of writing than a news article, typically between 800 and 1,500 words. Unlike a news article, which is intended to report facts quickly, a feature article dives deep into a topic and provides more detailed information. Feature articles often have a narrative arc, with a beginning, middle, and end. They can be about anything from a person or event to a trend or issue.

Feature articles are different from opinion pieces, as they are not intended to push a particular point of view or agenda. Instead, they are meant to provide an unbiased exploration of a topic. Feature writing also differs from creative writing, as it is based on facts and research rather than imagination. However, feature writers still utilize their creativity when crafting stories, as they must choose which facts to highlight and how to structure the narrative.

So why should you write feature articles? Feature writing can be an effective way to engage readers and build relationships with them. Through feature writing, you can give readers an in-depth look at a topic and help them understand it better. Feature writing also allows you to showcase your writing skills and connect with readers on an emotional level. By creating stories that are both informative and entertaining, you can make a lasting impression on your audience.

A Guide to Crafting Feature Articles

Now that you know what feature writing is and why it is important, let’s take a look at how to write a successful feature article. The first step is to find an interesting topic to write about. Think about issues or stories that you find intriguing, and brainstorm ideas for potential feature pieces. You can also look at current events and trends, as these can be great sources of inspiration.

Once you have chosen a topic, it is time to do some research. Read up on the subject and gather relevant information from reliable sources. Take notes as you go, and look for quotes or other material that you can use in your article. If possible, try to conduct interviews with experts or people involved in the story, as this can add valuable insight to your article.

Once you have gathered all the necessary information, you can begin outlining your feature article. Start by deciding on a structure for your story, such as chronological order or a comparison between two sides of an issue. Then, create a list of points that you want to include in your article. This will help you stay focused and organized while writing.

Finally, it is time to start writing your feature article. Make sure to craft an engaging introduction that will draw readers in and set the tone for your story. As you write, keep in mind the structure you outlined and make sure to include all the important points. Use vivid language to make your article come alive, and don’t forget to proofread your work carefully before submitting it.

Feature Writing: What is it and How to Do It Right

Once you have a basic understanding of what feature writing is and how to craft feature articles, it is time to learn more about the art of feature writing. When writing feature stories, it is important to remember that each one is unique. No two stories will be the same, and there is no “right” way to write a feature article.

When structuring a feature story, think about how you can present the information in an interesting and engaging way. Consider using different formats, such as a Q&A or a timeline, to break up the text and make it easier to read. Also, try to avoid clichés and overused phrases, as these can make your article seem dull and uninteresting.

Interviews are an important part of feature writing, so it is important to ask the right questions. Make sure to prepare ahead of time and come up with thoughtful questions that will elicit meaningful responses. And don’t forget to ask follow-up questions, as this can help you get even more insightful answers.

In addition to structure and interviews, your writing style is also important. Feature writing should be written in an accessible and engaging style. Avoid jargon and technical terms, and focus on creating an inviting and conversational tone. Also, make sure to include vivid details and descriptions to bring your story to life.

Understanding the Art of Feature Writing

Feature writing is an art, and it takes practice to master. To become a successful feature writer, it is important to understand the different types of feature writing and how to use them effectively. There are three main types of feature writing: human interest stories, investigative pieces, and profiles. Human interest stories focus on people and their lives, while investigative pieces delve into specific issues and uncover new information. Profiles are biographical stories that explore a person’s life and accomplishments.

Visuals can also be an important part of feature writing. Photos, videos, and illustrations can help bring your story to life and help readers connect with it. However, it is important to make sure that any visuals you use are relevant and high quality. Low-quality images can take away from the impact of your article.

Finally, it is important to create an engaging voice for your feature pieces. Think about how you can make your writing stand out and draw readers in. Consider using humor, wordplay, and other techniques to make your article more memorable. Also, make sure to keep your readers in mind and tailor your writing to their interests and needs.

The Power of Feature Writing for Journalists and Writers

Feature writing has the power to engage readers and spark social change. Stories about real people and issues can inspire readers to take action and make a difference. Feature writing can also be used as a platform for reporting on injustices and raising awareness about important issues.

There are many examples of feature writing that have had a powerful impact. One example is the Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Angels in America” by Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten. The series explored the struggles of a family living with AIDS in the 1980s, and it helped change public perception and attitudes towards the disease.

Another example of impactful feature writing is the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column. The column publishes personal essays about love and relationships, and it has become a popular destination for readers looking for advice and comfort. By sharing intimate stories, the column has created an online community and sparked conversations about love and relationships.

Feature writing is a powerful tool for journalists and writers who want to engage readers and tell compelling stories. Feature writing combines elements of storytelling, research, and interviews to create in-depth articles that explore a topic in detail. It is important to keep in mind the different types of feature writing and how to structure a feature story when crafting a feature article. Additionally, visuals and an engaging voice can help make your article even more impactful. Feature writing has the power to inform readers and spark social change, and it is an important skill for any journalist or writer.

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Hi, I'm Happy Sharer and I love sharing interesting and useful knowledge with others. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way.

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Reviving the Feature Story

In my recent essay about the Feature Writing category of the Pulitzer Prizes, I argued that weighty narrative series may have elbowed the traditional stand-alone feature out of contention. As a champion and practitioner of the serial narrative, I mean no disrespect for the work of my journalism heroes such as Isabel Wilkerson, Tom French, Tom Hallman, Anne Hull, Jacqui Banaszynski, and many others.

But the future of the feature story is important. ( The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing is important only because it declares a standard of excellence to which other journalists aspire.) Readers like stories, even news stories, written in “feature style,” according to the Readership Institute . And since the invention of the human-interest story, the feature has had the beneficial effect of expanding the universe of newspaper readers while enriching our definition of news.

Feature stories offer news of the emotions is the way Jon Franklin, twice a Pulitzer winner, has described it to me.

What, then, does a real feature story look like?

Consider these as possible characteristics:

• You can read it, if you want to, in a single sitting on the day the story was published.
• You can read a short one in five minutes and a long one in 15 minutes.
• It is NOT a news story but can be inspired by the news.
• It has, at its heart, human interest.
• It illuminates lives lived in our time.
• It takes advantage of an expanded set of language and narrative strategies.
• It can be written and reported within the normal timeframe of journalistic enterprise.

Each one of those characteristics deserves it own essay. But for now, I’ll offer a couple of recent examples of the noble feature story from my hometown newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times .

Lane DeGregory wrote “Fight, Fight, FIGHT,” the story of a male high school cheerleader, kicked off the squad for drinking. His assertive mother seems ready to go to the ends of the earth to clear her son’s name. I happened to like this story very much, but it’s not necessary for you to like it in order to recognize it as an exemplar of the newspaper feature genre.

Applying my standards:

• The entire story appeared in the St. Pete Times on Sunday, May 30, 2004, and I read it in one sitting.
• It took me about 15 minutes to read the story, which was about 60 inches long, at the far end of my standard, but still in range. (Lane says she drafted a version that was twice as long, cut it herself, and then cut it again with the help of her editor.)
• It is not a news story, although the mother’s legal suit against the school board had been reported as news.
• The human characters are fascinating, a teenager who becomes the only boy on the cheerleading squad, only to lose his position for allegations of drinking; a mother unwilling to let this stand, whose efforts to rescue her son may have backfired.
• The story is “about” so many of the issues of our time: gender politics, sexual orientation, discrimination, litigious parents, inflexible school boards, mother and child reunions, and much, much more.
• The story is written in a compelling and non-judgmental voice that lets readers enter the world of this family, experience the turmoil, and draw their own conclusions. Here’s the lead:

Johnathan’s mom drove him to cheerleading camp that Wednesday. She helped carry his bags to his dorm room at the University of South Florida, where he was going to spend three days with his teammates from Pasco High. She hung his Tommy Hilfiger shirts in the closet. She made his bed. Then she drained the melted ice from his cooler. She had packed it with nectarines and peaches, whole milk and Zephyrhills water, two bottles of Gatorade and a six-pack of Sierra Mist. She knows these details because she went back to Wal-Mart months later and got a copy of the receipt. She needed it for evidence.

These details foreshadow the mother’s more controlling impulses, and the mini-cliffhanger drives the reader forward to answer the question: “evidence for what?”

Lane says she reported and wrote the story from March through May, a period during which she worked on another half-dozen or so feature stories.

I can make a similar case for “Sean’s Echo,” a story written by Kelley Benham. Here we learn of a young boy who dies suddenly of natural causes, leaving behind a special hearing device that helped him overcome his serious speech impediment. Former Poynter boss, Jim Naughton, told me that he cried during the poignant scenes in which another young boy becomes the beneficiary of this expensive mechanical device, which cures his stuttering. At first the story looks like the familiar one in which a person benefits from a transplanted organ. What makes this case special is that the “organ” is a mechanical device.

Kelley’s story was about a 10-minute read (2,000 words) and fit into many of the standard feature writing categories I described above. To show her range and versatility, that same week Kelley wrote a story about a homeowner who loves his lawn and his $17,000 lawnmower just a little too much. “One day she made me cry,” testified Naughton, “another day she made me laugh.”

“Feature Writing” will always be an imprecise mode of expression, with an imprecise history. The book “Best News Stories of 1924” compiled stories in several categories, including Feature Stories, Human Interest Stories, Interviews, and Personality Stories. Most of these stories, from the vantage point of our time, look like features. One additional complicating factor: In the last 30 years, my time frame, news stories have been written with more feature elements, and many features are written right off the news. So the lines between news and features have blurred.

In that same time period, many newspapers have dropped their Sunday magazines and converted their general feature sections to cover special topics, everything from food to health to technology. As a result, the habitat for the traditional stand-alone feature has shrunk, and, with it, the habit of reading good stories that used to draw many of us to the newspaper in the first place.

[ Please join this conversation. Where are you seeing good feature writing these days? Give us some links to your favorite examples. What makes great feature writing great? ]

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How to Write a Feature Article

Last Updated: March 11, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Mary Erickson, PhD . Mary Erickson is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Western Washington University. Mary received her PhD in Communication and Society from the University of Oregon in 2011. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the National Communication Association, and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 41 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,459,401 times.

Writing a feature article involves using creativity and research to give a detailed and interesting take on a subject. These types of articles are different from typical news stories in that they often are written in a different style and give much more details and description rather than only stating objective facts. This gives the reader a chance to more fully understand some interesting part of the article's subject. While writing a feature article takes lots of planning, research, and work, doing it well is a great way to creatively write about a topic you are passionate about and is a perfect chance to explore different ways to write.

Choosing a Topic

• Human Interest : Many feature stories focus on an issue as it impacts people. They often focus on one person or a group of people.
• Profile : This feature type focuses on a specific individual’s character or lifestyle. This type is intended to help the reader feel like they’ve gotten a window into someone’s life. Often, these features are written about celebrities or other public figures.
• Instructional : How-to feature articles teach readers how to do something. Oftentimes, the writer will write about their own journey to learn a task, such as how to make a wedding cake.
• Historical : Features that honor historical events or developments are quite common. They are also useful in juxtaposing the past and the present, helping to root the reader in a shared history.
• Seasonal : Some features are perfect for writing about in certain times of year, such as the beginning of summer vacation or at the winter holidays.
• Behind the Scenes : These features give readers insight into an unusual process, issue or event. It can introduce them to something that is typically not open to the public or publicized.

Interviewing Subjects

• Schedule about 30-45 minutes with this person. Be respectful of their time and don’t take up their whole day. Be sure to confirm the date and time a couple of days ahead of the scheduled interview to make sure the time still works for the interviewee.
• If your interviewee needs to reschedule, be flexible. Remember, they are being generous with their time and allowing you to talk with them, so be generous with your responses as well. Never make an interviewee feel guilty about needing to reschedule.
• If you want to observe them doing a job, ask if they can bring you to their workplace. Asking if your interviewee will teach you a short lesson about what they do can also be excellent, as it will give you some knowledge of the experience to use when you write.

• Be sure to ask your interviewee if it’s okay to audio-record the interview. If you plan to use the audio for any purpose other than for your own purposes writing up the article (such as a podcast that might accompany the feature article), you must tell them and get their consent.
• Don't pressure the interviewee if they decline audio recording.

• Another good option is a question that begins Tell me about a time when.... This allows the interviewee to tell you the story that's important to them, and can often produce rich information for your article.

Preparing to Write the Article

• Start by describing a dramatic moment and then uncover the history that led up to that moment.
• Use a story-within-a-story format, which relies on a narrator to tell the story of someone else.
• Start the story with an ordinary moment and trace how the story became unusual.

• Check with your editor to see how long they would like your article to be.

• Consider what you absolutely must have in the story and what can be cut. If you are writing a 500-word article, for example, you will likely need to be very selective about what you include, whereas you have a lot more space to write in a 2,500 word article.

Writing the Article

• Start with an interesting fact, a quote, or an anecdote for a good hook.
• Your opening paragraph should only be about 2-3 sentences.

• Be flexible, however. Sometimes when you write, the flow makes sense in a way that is different from your outline. Be ready to change the direction of your piece if it seems to read better that way.

Finalizing the Article

• You can choose to incorporate or not incorporate their suggestions.

• Consult "The Associated Press Stylebook" for style guidelines, such as how to format numbers, dates, street names, and so on. [7] X Research source

• If you want to convey slightly more information, write a sub-headline, which is a secondary sentence that builds on the headline.

How Do You Come Up With an Interesting Angle For an Article?

Sample Feature Article

Community Q&A

• Ask to see a proof of your article before it gets published. This is a chance for you to give one final review of the article and double-check details for accuracy. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Be sure to represent your subjects fairly and accurately. Feature articles can be problematic if they are telling only one side of a story. If your interviewee makes claims against a person or company, make sure you talk with that person or company. If you print claims against someone, even if it’s your interviewee, you might risk being sued for defamation. [9] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://morrisjournalismacademy.com/how-to-write-a-feature-article/
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/writing/voices.html
• ↑ http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20007483
• ↑ http://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Courses/b572/public/StrunkWhite.pdf
• ↑ https://www.apstylebook.com/
• ↑ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/166662
• ↑ http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/libel-vs-slander-different-types-defamation.html

About This Article

To write a feature article, start with a 2-3 sentence paragraph that draws your reader into the story. The second paragraph needs to explain why the story is important so the reader keeps reading, and the rest of the piece needs to follow your outline so you can make sure everything flows together how you intended. Try to avoid excessive quotes, complex language, and opinion, and instead focus on appealing to the reader’s senses so they can immerse themselves in the story. Read on for advice from our Communications reviewer on how to conduct an interview! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Feature Story: Step-By-Step

This article gives a step-by-step process that can be used when writing feature articles. Read more and learn how to write a feature story effectively.

Feature stories are long-form non-fiction news articles that go into detail on a given topic. The most common type of feature stories are human interest stories, interviews and news features.

All of the best feature writers know that their articles live and die on the information that is detailed within the story. However, it requires more than just quality research to create a strong feature article.

You also need to understand how to get the reader’s attention from the first paragraph, as well as how to format the body of the article, and how to write a strong conclusion. It also helps if you have a flair for creative writing, as the style involved isn’t as rigid as traditional news stories.

If all this sounds complex, then don’t fret. There is a step-by-step process that can be used when writing feature articles.

Before we share that template, let us first take a quick look at a few of the different genres of this type of story format.

1. Human Interest

2. news features, 3. lifestyle features, 4. seasonal features, 5. interview pieces, 6. color stories, 7. profile features, 8. behind the scenes, 9. travel features, 10. instructional features, something completely different, steps for writing a feature writing, 1. evaluate your story ideas, 2. do your research, 3. decide the type of feature you want to write, 4. select an appropriate writing style, 5. craft a compelling headline, 6. open with interest, 7. don’t be afraid to be creative, writing a feature story: the last word, 10 different types of feature articles.

As the title suggests, when writing human interest stories, the focus is on people. There is usually a strong emphasis on emotion within these stories.

These feature stories can involve a personal goal, achievement, or a dramatic event within someone’s (or a group of people’s) life.

It can also just be a general story about the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

Examples: ‘The leather jacket I bought in my 20s represents a different woman. I just can’t let it go’, ‘I wish I had Rami Malek as a role model growing up – I was stuck with the Mummy’.

News features are probably the most common type of feature article. Within these, there is a strong emphasis on a current event, with the story explaining the reasons behind these events.

They may also go on to examine the implications behind the news stories.

Examples: ‘Eastern Europe’s business schools rise to meet western counterparts’, MBA by numbers: Mobility of UK graduates’.

Lifestyle features usually centre around life and how it can be lived better. For instance, an example of a lifestyle feature would be ‘Six Workouts You Have to Try This Summer’, or ‘Why You Need To Try Meditation’.

Lifestyle features are common within magazines.

Example: Six ways with Asian greens: ‘They’re almost like a cross between spinach and broccoli’ .

These feature articles are specific to certain times of year.

If you work within a newsroom, it is likely that they will have a calendar that schedules the times when certain types of features are due to be written.

One of of the advantages of these types of features is that you can plan them in a way you can’t with typical news stories.

Examples: ‘ 5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays With The New York Times ’, The Start of Summer .

Interview features have commonalities with other types of features, but are set apart as they are centred around a single interview.

A good way to strengthen this type of article is to share background information within the it. This information can be either on the interviewee, or the subject that is being discussed.

Examples: Mark Rylance on ‘Jerusalem’ and the Golf Comedy ‘Phantom of the Open’ , ‘I Deserve to Be Here’: Riding His First Professional Gig to Broadway

This is a feature that breaks down the feel and atmosphere of a hard news story.

They often accompany news writing.

Good feature writing here will help the reader imagine what it was like to be a at a certain event, or help them gain further understanding of the issues and implications involved of a story.

Examples: ‘ Why the Central African Republic adopted Bitcoin ’, ‘Admissions teams innovate to find ideal candidates’ .

A profile feature is like a mini-biography.

It tries to paint a picture of a person by revealing not only facts relating to their life, but also elements of their personality.

It can be framed around a certain time, or event within a person’s life, It can also simply be a profile detailing a person’s journey through life.

Examples: Why Ray Liotta was so much more than Goodfellas , Sabotage and pistols – was Ellen Willmott gardening’s ‘bad girl’?

These are features that give readers the inside track on what is happening.

They are particularly popular with entertainment journalists, but are used by feature writers within every sphere.

Examples: ‘‘You Just Have to Accept That Wes Is Right’: The French Dispatch crew explains how it pulled off the movie’s quietly impossible long shot ’. ‘The Diamond Desk, Surveillance Shots, and 7 Other Stories About Making Severance’.

As you probably guessed, a travel feature often features a narrator who is writing about a place that the reader has an interest in.

It is the job of the writer to inform their audience of the experiences, sights and sounds that they can also experience if they ever visit this destination.

Examples: ‘ Palau’s world-first ‘good traveller’ incentive ’, ‘An icy mystery deep in Arctic Canada’.

‘How to’ features will always have their place and have become even more popular with the advent of the internet phenomenon known as ‘life hacks’. There is now a subsection of these features, where writers try out ‘how to’ instructional content and let the reader know how useful it actually is.

Interestingly, you don’t have to go far to find an instructional feature article. You are actually reading one at the moment.

Example: The article you are reading right now.

Of course, the above is just an overview of some of the types of features that exist. You shouldn’t get bogged down by the idea that some feature types interlope with others.

Feature writing is a dynamic area that is constantly evolving and so are the topics and styles associated with this type of writing.

If you have an idea for something completely different, don’t be afraid to try it.

Now we covered some of the main types, let’s take a look at the steps you should take when planning to write a feature article.

It sounds obvious, but the first step on the path to a good feature article is to have a strong idea. If you are struggling for inspiration, then it may be worth your while checking out popular feature sections within newspapers or websites.

For instance, the New York Times is renowned for its wonderful ‘Trending’ section , as is The Guardian , for its features. Of course, these sites should be used only for education and inspiration.

In an instructional feature article, online learning platform MasterClass gives a good overview of the type of research that needs to be done for this type of article.

It states: “Feature stories need more than straight facts and sensory details—they need evidence. Quotes, anecdotes, and interviews are all useful when gathering information for (a) feature story.”

The article also gives an overview of why research is important. It reads: “Hearing the viewpoints or recollections of witnesses, family members, or anyone else… can help (the article) feel more three-dimensional, allowing you to craft a more vivid and interesting story.”

Feature articles may involve creative writing, but they are still based on facts. That is why research should be a tenet of any article you produce in this area.

Shortly after starting your research, you will be posed the question of ‘what type of feature do I want to write?’.

The answer to this question may even change from when you had your initial idea.

For example, you may have decided that you want to do a lifestyle feature on the physical fitness plan of your local sports team. However, during research, you realized that there is a far more interesting interview piece on one of the athletes who turned their physical health around by joining the team.

Of course, that is a fictional scenario, but anyone who has ever worked within a newsroom knows how story ideas can evolve and change based on the reporting that’s done for them.

The next step is to consider the language you will be using while writing the article. As you become more experienced, this will be second nature to you. However, for now, below are a few tips.

When writing a feature, you should do so with your own unique style. Unlike straight news stories, you can insert your personality and use emotive language.

However, you should avoid too many adjectives and adverbs and other overused words . You should generally refer to the audience as ‘you’ too.

To learn more, check out our article about the best style guides .

As you can tell from the examples listed above, a good feature usually has a good headline/ header. If you are lucky enough to work in a newsroom with a good subeditor, then they will work with you to decide an eye-catching headline.

However, most of you will have to pick your features’ header on your own. Thus, it’s worth giving some time to consider this stage of the process.

It is handy to take a look at Matrix Education’s tips for creating a catchy headline.

They are as follows:

• Use emotive language.
• Keep it short and snappy.
• Directly address the reader.
• Use adjectives / adverbs.
• Tell readers what your content is about.
• Ask a question.
• Give an imperative.

These are, of course, only options and they all shouldn’t be utilized at once.

Another suggestion that can be added to the list is grabbing an intriguing quote from the story and using that within the header.

Your opening paragraph should draw the reader in. It is important that you can hook them here; if you can grab them at the start, they are far more likely to go deeper into the article.

Methods of doing this include the building of tension, the posing of a rhetorical question, making an outlandish statement that is proven true later in the article, or working your way back from a monumental event that the reader is already familiar with.

Whichever you use, the primary goal should be to catch the reader’s interest and to make them want to read on.

If you need help, start with writing a five-paragraph essay .

Jean-Luc Godard said that “a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order”.

That statement can be somewhat applied to feature articles. However, don’t be afraid to take risks with your writing. Of course, it is important to share the information you need to share, but a feature article does offer far more room for creativity than the writing of a traditional news story.

8. Leave With A Bang

All the best feature writer leave a little something for the reader who reaches the end of the article. Whether that is a storming conclusion, or something that ties it all together, it is important that there is some sort of conclusion.

It gives your audience a feeling of satisfaction upon reading the article and will make this is the element that will make them look out for the articles that you will write in the future.

The above steps don’t necessarily need to be followed in the order they are written. However, if you are new to this type of writing, they should give you a good starting point as when creating feature articles.

When writing feature articles, you will find a style and a voice that suits you. This is a type of journalistic writing where you can embrace that creative side and run with it.

• What is a feature story example?

Jennifer Senior won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for an article entitled ‘What Bobby McIlVaine Left Behind’, an article about the human aftermath of grief after 9/11. It is an excellent example of a quality feature article.

• What is the difference between a feature story and a news story?

There are several differences between a feature article and a news story.

Firstly, news articles are time-sensitive, whereas there is more flexibility when a feature can be published as it will still be of interest to the public.

Secondly, feature stories are usually more long-form than news stories, with differences in style employed in both. For instance, news writing often employs the inverted pyramid, where the most important information is at the start. Whereas, feature writing has a tendency to tease out the information throughout the article.

Lastly, the ending of a news story usually happens when all the relevant and available details are shared. On the other hand, a feature story usually ends with the writer tying up the loose-ends that exist with an overall conclusion.

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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4 Types of Features

From profiles to travel stories, there is feature style for everyone

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” Isaac Asimov

Truth be told, no one writes a plain, old feature article, since “feature” is an umbrella term that encompasses a broad range of article types, from profiles to how-tos and beyond.

The goal here is not just to know these types exist but rather to use them to shape your material into a format that best serves your reader and the publication for which you are writing. Pitching a story that takes a particular format or angle also helps editors see the focus and appeal of your idea more clearly, which can help you get hired.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common feature article types.

A profile is a mini-biography on a single entity — person, place, event, thing — but it revolves around a nut graph that includes something newsworthy happening now. That “hook,” as we call the news focus, must be evident throughout the story.

A profile on Jennifer Lawrence might be interesting, but it is most likely to be published about the time she has a new movie coming out or she wins an award.

This fulfills the readers’ desire to know why they are reading about someone at a given time or in a given magazine.

The best profiles examine characters and document struggles and dreams. It’s important that you show a complete picture of who or what is being profiled — warts and all — especially since the controversy is often what keeps people reading. Controversy, however, is not the only compelling aspect of profiles. They are, most importantly, personal and insightful, beyond the pedantic list of accomplishments you can get from a bio sheet or a PR campaign.

Profiles aim to:

• Reveal feelings
• Expose attitudes
• Capture habits and mannerisms.
• Entertain and inform.

Accomplishing those goals is what makes profiles challenging to write, but also makes them among the most compelling and fulfilling stories to create.

Delving deeply into your subject’s interests, career, education and family can bring out amazing anecdotes, as can reporting in an immersive style.

The goal is to watch your subject closely and document his or her habits, mannerisms, vocal tones, dress, interactions and word choice. Describing these elements for readers can contribute to a fuller and more accurate presentation of the interview subject.

Consider this opening paragraph from one of my favorite profiles, Jeff Perlman’s look at one-time baseball bad boy John Rocker of the Atlanta Braves:

A MINIVAN is rolling slowly down Atlanta’s Route 400, and John Rocker, driving directly behind it in his blue Chevy Tahoe, is pissed. “Stupid bitch! Learn to f—ing drive!” he yells. Rocker honks his horn. Once. Twice. He swerves a lane to the left. There is a toll booth with a tariff of 50 cents. Rocker tosses in two quarters. The gate doesn’t rise. He tosses in another quarter. The gate still doesn’t rise. From behind, a horn blasts. “F— you!” Rocker yells, flashing his left middle finger out the window. Finally, after Rocker has thrown in two dimes and a nickel, the gate rises. Rocker brings up a thick wad of phlegm. Puuuh! He spits at the machine. “Hate this damn toll.”

Perlman does not have to tell us anything about Rocker; he has shown us and lets us make our own determinations as to the person we are getting to know through this article.

Research is key to any piece, but profiles provide the ultimate test of your interviewing skills. How well can you coax complete strangers into sharing details of their private lives? Your job is to get subjects to open up and share their true personalities, memories, experiences, opinions, feelings and reflections.

This comes from a true conversational style and a willingness to probe as deep as you need to get the material you need.

Interview your subject and as many people as you need to get clear perspectives of your profile subject.

Not everyone will make your article, but you can get background information and anecdotes that could be crucial to understanding your subject or asking key questions. (Now might be a good time to download “Always Get the Name of the Dog.”)

Take the time to watch your subject at work or play so you can really get to know them in a three-dimensional way.

The fewer sources and the less time you spend with your subject the less accurate or complex your profile will be.

The framework of a profile follows these guidelines:

Anecdotal lede

An engaging, revealing a little story to lure us into your article.

Nut graph/Theme

A paragraph that shows the reader what exactly this story is about and why does this entity matter now?

Observe our subject in action now using dialogue details and descriptions.

A recap of our subject’s past activities using facts, quotes and anecdotes as they relate to the theme.

Where Are We Now?

What is our subject doing now, as it relates to the theme?

What Lies Ahead?

Plans, dreams, goals and barriers to overcome.

Closing Quote

Bring the article home in a way that makes the reader feel the story is complete like they can sigh at the end of a good tale.

A Q&A article is just what it sounds like — an article structured in questions and answers.

Freelancers and editors both like them for several reasons:

• They’re easy to write.
• They’re easy to read.
• They can be used on a variety of subjects.

The catch is writers/interviewers must take even greater care with the questions asked and ensuring the quality of the answers received because they will provide both the skeleton and the meat of your piece.

This may seem obvious, but quality questions are vital, meaning we avoid closed-ended (yes or no, single-word answer) questions and instead ask questions that will inspire some thought, creativity and explanation or description.

Q&A articles start with an introduction into the subject — often as anecdotal as any other piece, but then transition into the fly-on-the-wall feeling of watching an interview take place. You are the interviewer.

The subject is the interviewee, and the reader is sitting alongside you both soaking in the experience and your relationship.

That means a Q&A has to stay conversational so it does not feel like a written interrogation.

The interview itself is much like we would use for an article, but you have to be more conscious of the order in which you ask questions, how they transition from one another and the quality of the answer so you are not tempted to move answers around.

You will be amazed at how many words get generated in an actual conversation or interview, so the Q&A is far from over when the interview concludes. Editing and cutting the interview transcript can take far longer than the interview itself.

You cannot change your subject’s words, but you take out redundancies and those verbal lubricants that keep conversations moving — “like,” “you know,” etc., Sentences and phrases can be edited out by using ellipses (…) to show you have removed something.

Grammar is a challenge with a lot of transcripts, and I will leave in that which represents the subject, but I will not let them come across badly by misusing words or phrases.

Instead, let’s take it out or ask them to clarify.

If you do an internet search on “round-up story,” you very often get a collection of information from various places on a central them.

Feature round-ups are written the same way.

These articles are like list blog posts, where you have a variety of suggestions from different sources that advance a common idea:

• 7 secrets to a happy baby
• 10 best vacation spots with a teenager
• 5 tips on how to pick the perfect roommate

You may notice that there is a numeric value on each of these ideas, and that is a key part of the roundup. You are offering a collection of suggestions, provided and supported by sources, on a specific topic.

The article begins, as most features do, with an anecdote that takes us to a theme, but instead of a uniform or chronological body style, we break it up into these sections outlined by each numbered suggestion.

Each section can be constructed like its own mini feature — complete with sources, facts, anecdote and quotes, or just the advice provided by a qualified source (not the author!).

There does not need to be a specific order to how each piece of the article is presented, rather their order is interchangeable.

It is important to have sources with some level of expertise and not merely opinions on the topic. Just because someone went to Club Med with their 5-year-old and had fun does not mean it’s the best vacation spot for kids.

We first need an idea of what makes a good vacation spot and then support with facts how this one fits the criteria.

Readers love to learn how to do new things, and there are few better ways to teach them than through how-to articles.

How-to articles provide a description of how something can be accomplished using information and advice, giving step-by-step directions, supplies and suggestions for success.

Unlike round-ups, these articles must be written sequentially and have to end with some sort of success.

Aim for something that most people don’t know how to do, or something that offers a new way of approaching a familiar task. Most importantly, make sure it is neither too simplistic, nor too complex for their attempt, and include provide definitions and anecdotes that show how things can go well or poorly in attempting this task.

Personal Experience

Most of us have had some experience that we think, “I would love to write about this so other people can learn or enjoy this with me.”

If you have a truly original and teachable moment and can find the right feature to which to pitch it, you may very well have a personal experience story on your hands.

Some guidelines for finding such a story include whether this is an experience readers would:

• Wish to share?
• Learn or benefit from?
• Wish to avoid?
• Help cope with a challenge?

Unlike a first-person lede, which might use your personal anecdote to get us into a broader story, in a personal experience article you are the story, and how we learn from your experience will help us navigate the same waters.

They can be emotional, like the New Yorker piece on women who share their abortion stories , but they can also be about amazing vacations that others might consider — “Bar Mitzvah trip to Israel” anyone? — or how about a man who quits a high-powered job to stay home with his kids?

No matter what your experience, you must be willing to tell your story with passion and objectivity, sharing the good, the bad and the uncomfortable, and making readers part of the experience.

It’s important that the experience is over before you pitch, so the reader can get a clear perspective of what happened and the resolution. Did it work or not?

As the author, you also need time to gain perspective on your issue so you can “report” it as objectively as possible.

Finally, make sure you are chronicling something attainable or achievable. We need to go through it and come out the other side with evidence that will make us smarter and better equipped to handle a similar situation that might come our way.

The Art of Covering Horse Racing

Melissa Hoppert is the racing writer from the New York Times, and despite covering the same events over and over she manages to find a unique story each time.

Belmont Park is called “Big Sandy,” because the track has so much sand on it. I rode the tractor and asked the trackman, “What makes it like that? What it’s like to race on it?”

It was my most-read story that year. You have to think outside the box.

When the horse Justify came along, it was like ”here we go again — another Triple Crown with the same trainer. What can I possibly write about Bob Baffert that has not written before?

We observed and thought outside the box. We didn’t do a Bob Baffert feature. We went to the barn and still talked to him every day, but we looked at things differently.

We focused more on the owners . They were in a partnership and that is a trend of the sport. Rich owners team up to share the risk. That made it more of a trend story. Is this where we are going.

Sometimes I like writing about the horse. American Pharoah was a really fun, quirky horse. My most favorite story was when I went to visit American Pharoah’s sire, Pioneer of the Nile , at the breeding shed. He has a weird breeding style. He needed the mood to be set. It was kind of random, but it helped tell a story of American Pharoah that had not yet been told.

True-Life Drama

Examples of these include:

• The couple on a sight-seeing plane ride that had to land the plane when their pilot died
• Aron Ralston frees himself by sawing off his own arm after getting trapped in the desert.
• Tornado survival stories

It is fitting that the first example I found to show you of true-life dramas came from Readers Digest because these types of stories are the bread and butter of that magazine.

They are the stories that are almost impossible to believe but are true, and they are driven by the characters who make them come to life.

Some “true-life dramas” become even more famous when they are adapted for the screen, like the Slate story of being rescued from Iran , you might know better as the film, “Argo.”

How about Capt. Richard Phillips’ dramatic struggle with Somali pirates, now a film starring Tom Hanks?

Steve Lopes of the Los Angeles Times found a violin-playing homeless man who became the subject of numerous columns and later the movie “The Soloist.”

These stories are, quite simply, dramatic experiences from real people, where they live through moments few of us can imagine.

Many of the feature versions of these stories start as newspaper coverage of the breaking event, and then a desire to go behind-the-scenes and chronicle exactly what happened over a much longer course of time — the lead-up, the culmination and the aftermath.

Being a consumer of news will help you come across these stories, and a desire to conduct really penetrating interviews to get the “real story” will make them come to life.

You might not be thinking about Christmas in May or back-to-school in February, but chances are editors will be scheduling those topics and looking for article ideas.

Seasonal stories are the ones that happen every year and need a fresh angle on an annual basis.

It goes beyond standbys like “Best side dishes for Thanksgiving,” and how to make a good Easter basket, to “ How to do the holidays in a newly divorced family ,” and “Back to school shopping for a home-schooled child.”

The key is that a timely observance is interwoven in the theme, and these stories are planned and often executed months in advance since we all know they are coming.

Seasonal can also relate to anniversaries — Sept. 11, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Titanic sinking — and their marketability can escalate dramatically around an anniversary.

The angle is all about the audience, so think how you can spin one day or a milestone event to toddlers, teens, seniors, your local community, pets, business, food, travel and you may suddenly have 10 stories from one topic.

Remember, though, that your pitch has to come long before the event is even in the mind of most readers — at least six months and sometimes a year.

The perceived glamour division of freelance writing is the travel piece, which most people think comes with an all-expense-paid trip to swanky, exotic locations.

That can be true, but more likely writers make their own plans and accommodations and their pay reflects that a portion of their compensation comes from the good time they had traveling.

The good news is that with the rise of travel blogs and smaller travel publications there are more outlets than ever to pitch your ideas, provided they are original and unique to the audience.

That means, “Traveling to Paris,” probably won’t work, but “ Traveling to Paris on $50 a day ” just might.

That also does not mean that publications are looking for your personal essay on what you did for your summer vacation, or just because you visited Peru and loved it that it’s worthy of a feature article. You have to show the editor and the reader why you have a unique perspective and angle on a traveling experience.

Travel writing means looking for stories on about:

• How to travel
• When to travel
• Advice on traveling

The more specifically you can focus on a population of travelers — seniors, parents, honeymooners, first-time family vacation — the more likely you can come up with an idea that has not been overdone and pitch it to a niche magazine.

In a column on the Writer’s Digest website, Brian Klems writes the need to travel “deeply” as opposed to just widely, and I thought that was such an insightful term. He spelled out the need to really dig deep into whatever area you might cover and take copious, detailed notes, but I would add that you also have to really dig deep into what people want to know about travel and enough to go past the cliché or stereotypes.

The more descriptively you can present experiences, the more compelled readers may be to join you.

To separate yourself from the cacophony of travel voices out there, consider building up expertise in one subject or area. If you are from an interesting area, see how you can pitch stories to bring make outsiders insiders. Are you a big hockey fan? What about traveling to different hockey venues and making a weekend travel story out of what to see and do before and after the game?

The key to success is to become a curious and perceptive traveler from the minute you book a trip. Think about how your experience can be a travel story, as opposed to only looking to pitch stories that could become an experience.

Some other types to consider:

Essay or Opinion

First-person pieces, which usually revolve around an important or timely subject (if they’re to be published in a newspaper or “serious” magazine).

Historical Article

Focus on a single historical aspect of the subject but make a current connection.

Trend Story

Takes the pulse of a population right now, often in technology, fashion, arts and health.

No, we are not talking about trees.

Evergreen stories are ones that do not have an expiration date and can be pitched for creation at any time.

A profile on a new trend or profile-worthy person has to be pitched in relatively short order, or it will not really marketable anymore. But a story on how to build an exercise program around your pet does not really have to be published at a specific time.

Incorporating evergreen ideas into your repertoire of story ideas will open up even more publishing doors.

Writing Fabulous Features Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Kraft is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Feature Writing

• Updated on  
• Feb 7, 2024

Feature Writing is a literary and critically recognised form of writing in Journalism . It involves writing featured articles on trending topics, great personalities and relevant issues. This form of writing is generally longer than a specific news story and more informative. Feature writings are used extensively in magazines, newspapers and online media. It covers a story in great depth and is intended to captivate the audience’s attention to a specific cause by looking at the story from a different angle. Did you know there is a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing? Keep reading to learn more about feature writing and how to craft the best feature.

This Blog Includes:

What is the difference between a news story and a feature story, feature writing – the applause formula, different types of feature writing, style and objective of feature writing.

People are often confused between a news story and a feature. Here are some basic differences between the two:

• While a news story usually covers recent or breaking news, feature writing can be issue-specific and might not be recent. 
• A news story summarises the story whereas a feature focuses on anecdotal references.
• A feature contains many angles and sources whereas on the contrary, a news story general is from a single source or angle.
• If we compare the structure of the forms of writing, the news story follows an inverted pyramid structure while feature writing has a flexible structure and can take a linear/non-linear scale. The conclusion forms a very important part of the feature.

For instance, recent news can be covered in a news feature and it can abandon the inverted pyramid structure to cover a human interest story using more detail and emotion.

Also Read: How to Write Dialogues?

According to journalistic theories, a feature writing story must follow the APPLAUSE Formula where each letter represents:

A – Appeal

P – Plain Facts

P – Personalities

L – Logic

A – Action

U – Universal

S – Significance

E – Energy

Must Read: How to Become a Ghostwriter?

According to The Universal Journalist written by the British journalist David Randall and a critically acknowledged masterpiece on Journalism elaborates on the following different types of feature stories:

• Colour Piece: A feature story that essentially tries to inform readers regarding a particular theme or subject.
• Fly on the Wall: A feature story that is conceived and narrated unobtrusively and mostly without the explicit permission of the subjects.
• Behind the Scenes: A feature story that shifts its focus from the principal event to the background and narrates an interesting tale.
• In Disguise: A feature story that is told while the storyteller is a part of the event.
• Interview: A feature story that develops itself around questions asked to a respondent, who is usually in a place of prominence.
• Profile: A feature story that is based on the exploits of a particular eminent person with or without his/ her interview.
• How-To: A feature story that is dependent on research and helps readers in solving a problem or deciphering a scenario.
• Fact Box/ Chronology: A feature story that provides plain and simple facts mostly in chronological order.
• Backgrounder/ A History of: A feature story that provides detailed information.
• Full Texts: A feature story that is nothing but extracts from a book or transcripts of an interview.
• Testimony: A feature story that is the first-person account of an individual. 
• Analysis: A feature story that scholarly analyzes an event.
• Vox Pop/ Expert Roundup: A feature story that accumulates opinions from the general citizenry and thought leaders concerning a subject.
• Opinion Poll: A feature story that conducts research on opinions and presents a generalized summary of the accumulated opinions.
• Review: A feature story that reviews a work of art and presents a generalized opinion.

There is no set format for feature writing. It generally involves stories that play an extremely critical role in building opinions and inciting actions. Features are extensively used for advocacy, knowledge generation and raising awareness on issues.

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As discussed, a feature story generally represents a new item through a narrative story and uses plot and story characters. The content used in feature writing is not fictional, It heavily relies on realism, subjectivity and creativity. The purpose of Feature Writing is to attempt to connect emotionally with the readers. It serves the purpose of entertaining the readers while informing them. They are however less objective than straight news.

Feature stories are also not time-sensitive and are written in an active style emphasising mainly entertaining prose. A feature story normally presents newsworthy events or takes a relevant cause that has been in the media for a while. For instance, the award-winning feature writing piece, “When can we really rest?” by Nadja Drost talks about the dangerous journey undertaken by migrants crossing the Colombia-Panama border to reach the US.

To understand Feature stories more, let us see with a slide given below:

Related Blogs:

Feature writing is a creative as well as an informative tool of writing; it’s designed to raise awareness and bring notice to relevant issues around the world. Want to pursue a career in writing and journalism? Contact our experts at  Leverage Edu and get the best advice on colleges, courses and the best countries!

Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

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DPI-840M: Feature Writing

In this section.

• Courses related to climate
• Course Registration
• Courses related to racism & bias
• Cross-Registration & Auditing

James Geary

This intensive module provides a thorough grounding in the techniques of journalistic feature writing: researching, reporting, interviewing, writing — and revising. We investigate where good feature ideas come from; we explore how to conceptualize, organize, and structure those ideas through journalistic narrative; and we experiment in a collaborative workshop environment with several journalistic forms — the profile, the reported essay, the “trend” piece. Students will gain proficiency in the techniques of journalistic feature writing, skills that are relevant to other forms of writing, too, including academic and policy writing.

Each course in the DPI communications series assumes fluency with the English language. Attendance at first class mandatory.

1. Researching, Writing and Presenting Information - A How To Guide: Writing a Feature Article

• Brainstorming and Planning
• Effective Research
• Note-taking
• Writing an Essay
• Writing a Discussion
• Writing an Exposition
• Writing a Rationale
• Years 11 & 12
• Writing a Blog Post
• Writing a Feature Article
• Preparing Oral Presentations
• Creating a Podcast
• Technologies
• Effective Proofreading Skills
• Glossary of Common Instruction Terms
• Glossary of Literary Terms
• How to use Appendices
• How to paraphrase

Writing an Article

Feature articles explore issues, experiences, opinions and ideas. They present research in an engaging and detailed piece of writing. Features articles are written using language and content tailored to their chosen audience. Always refer to your task guidelines for specific instructions from your teacher.

A Step by Step Guide To Planning Your Article

1. Topic - what is the idea, issue or experience that you intend to explore?

2. Audience - who is the target audience of the publication that will contain your feature article?

3. Purpose - why are you exploring this issue, idea or experience?

4. Research the publication. Remember that each publication has a specific target audience and a distinct style of writing. If you’re writing for a well-known magazine, journal or newspaper, find some examples of feature articles to get an idea of the layout, structure and style.

5. Research your topic. Research will ground your article in fact. Good details to include in your article are statistics, quotes, definitions, anecdotes, references to other media (print, film, television, radio) or references to local venues or events (if for a regional/local publication).

• Draws attention to the main idea of the article
• Encourages the reader to engage with the article

Introduction - the first paragraph

• Establishes tone
• Provides necessary background information
• Includes a hook or unusual statement
• Heightens drama or importance of topic to increase appeal
• May include subheadings
• Personal viewpoints
• Quotes, interviews, expert opinions
• Specific names, places and dates
• Photographs, diagrams, tables and graphs
• Suggests an appropriate course of action
• Encourages reader to change attitude or opinion
• Reinforces article's main idea

Language features of an Article

The language features of an article will depend upon the purpose and audience; usually, the vocabulary of the article will fit the topic content, and who it is targeted at.

• Direct quotes - personalises the topic
• Imagery and description - engage reader's imagination
• Facts & research - validate the viewpoints being presented
• Anecdotes - personalise & maintain interest
• Relevant jargon - increases authenticity
• Personal tone - created using informal, colloquial language and first person narrative where relevant to purpose and audience
• << Previous: Writing a Blog Post
• Next: Preparing Oral Presentations >>
• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2022 2:24 PM
• URL: https://stcc.libguides.com/c.php?g=926682

Writing Fabulous Features

(4 reviews)

Nicole Kraft, The Ohio State University

Copyright Year: 2019

Publisher: The Ohio State University Pressbooks

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Dale Jenkins, Advanced Instructor, Virginia Tech on 12/30/21

Having taught Media Writing for more than a decade with a feature story serving as my final, I have used two different textbooks. Each one offered only a few pages that summed up the feature story. Kraft's "Writing Fabulous Features" provides... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Having taught Media Writing for more than a decade with a feature story serving as my final, I have used two different textbooks. Each one offered only a few pages that summed up the feature story. Kraft's "Writing Fabulous Features" provides important information for students regarding the delineation between writing news stories and composing features. The details about what constitutes a feature can provide assistance to students as they prepare to write, rather than relying solely on examples from professional writers. The first section on "Uncovering the Magic of Features" offers the background that journalism students need to grasp the task at hand and how to integrate the skills they already possess, in addition to the new elements that feature writing demands. I found each section of the book valuable, except for the interviewing segment. Although I understand why the author included this segment, students would have already been well-acquainted with personal interviews by the time an instructor assigns a feature, but a nuts-and-bolts review is always helpful

Content Accuracy rating: 5

In reading through the text, I did not encounter any mistakes. Of course, as a media writing teacher, my job is to ensure accuracy on each paper that I assign. I am a stickler for accuracy, and I found the text to be well-crafted and well-edited. The variety of writers contributing their work and offering insights helped Kraft put together a text free of bias.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Since feature stories have a much longer shelf-life than news stories, I did not see any discussion in the text of potential cause for concern regarding its relevancy for my students. The layout of the text does lend itself to the integration of updates should any of the information wane in terms of its applicability over time.

Clarity rating: 5

I perused the entire book and found its straightforward delivery extremely readable and, with my students in mind, consider it quite manageable for them. I found the text engaging and plan to use multiple sections in the future for my students as they prepare to write their feature stories.

Consistency rating: 5

As I evaluated the text, I considered this a winning characteristic of Kraft's work. The introduction of new terms always included definitions with useful examples. Students would not get lost in the jargon of this text, an aspect that I value highly in any book that I utilize in my classroom.

Modularity rating: 5

The organization of the text reflects Kraft's extensive work in the writing field. Even students with a short attention span would not have trouble navigating through the different sections and would not tire of the reading. I found the text engaging and pertinent, coupled with the fact that the author did a good job of deleting extraneous info that students would not need in order to compose effective features.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The author employed a logical sense of flow in organizing the text. Students will find the info simple to follow and clearly articulated.

Interface rating: 5

As I read through the text, I did not encounter any problems accessing the material, in addition to the fact that all of the hyperlinks worked.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

As a teacher who edits all of the work my students submit, I never turn off my antennae regarding grammatical errors when I evaluate written work. With that said, I did not see any errors in the course of perusing Kraft's text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The examples of features and the insights offered by contributing writers exhibited a variety of perspectives and types of stories. This is an important dimension of any text, and Kraft did a good job of keeping this in my mind during the process of collecting viable material regarding feature writing.

I have read through a number of books on Open Textbooks, and I found this one extremely useful for what my students need in prepping to write their feature stories. The sections on writing with anecdotes, composing ledes and crafting the nut graph for features provides info rarely found in media writing textbooks. The host of examples of professional writers' work give students a choice regarding types of stories to read and use for guidance in their own features. I plan to use this textbook for my media writing students next semester and in the future.

Reviewed by Ken Ward, Assistant Professor, Pittsburg State University on 9/23/21

This book doesn’t try to be all things to all people. That’s a strength. It focuses tightly on those skills essential to feature writing—topic selection, interviewing, writing, and revising. As a consequence, it seems more likely to keep students’... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book doesn’t try to be all things to all people. That’s a strength. It focuses tightly on those skills essential to feature writing—topic selection, interviewing, writing, and revising. As a consequence, it seems more likely to keep students’ interest and be immediately useful to them. Something lacking here is help for students on doing all that background research before and after interviews. The book notes how important all that work is, but doesn’t provide guidance on how to do it.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

It’s a pragmatic book rooted in the experience of feature writers who speak with authority. It doesn’t get distracted or stuck in the weeds, and it’s willing to say, from subjective experience, what techniques are right and wrong. Compared to many books on writing for college students, this is refreshing. However, the book is entirely anecdotal, and support from research or at a minimum more triangulation of technique from a larger group of journalists would lead to a stronger book.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

These techniques are largely timeless. The writing is up-to-date where practices have changed. There are great passages that are very approachable for students, including the writer spotlights. I love the touch test. There are lots of examples from sports journalism, which may make it hard for some students to connect.

The writing, as you’d expect, is excellent, and the examples are concise and helpful. The anecdotes chapter was a joy to read. There are a few issues with grammar that affect clarity at times, but that’s discussed below.

Yes. The book is consistent—nothing to note here.

Each chapter stands on its own and is easily digestible. The result is a quick, informative read that lends itself to adaptability as a primary or secondary text for many courses.

Organization is generally clear, although there are a few places where the headings aren’t properly nested, making it difficult to understand the relationship between ideas. I’m looking specifically at chapter 4 here. This might fit better under interface. However, the progression of topics is clear and sensible.

Interface rating: 4

Generally solid. I happened to click on a dead link (Perlman, ch. 4), and if I stumbled into one, there are probably more. Some of the images are low resolution, although that may be to make them easily portable into an e-reader.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

For a book of this size, and with a section about revision, I was surprised by the number of grammatical errors. They weren’t overwhelming, but in the middle and late portions of the book, they appeared regularly. The quote at the very top of chapter 10 really took me for a loop. Spread throughout a longer book on a different topic, they’d be entirely forgivable. Less so in a short book on writing.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

I got the impression from the mugshots throughout the book that the list of contributors might be pretty white, so I browsed through the contributors page. There are lots of ways a text can relate to diverse audiences, but one key way is by providing diverse perspectives from a racially diverse group of contributors. This is an extremely white, midwestern group. EXTREMELY. The stable of experts quoted here is fairly small, making the similarities in race, specialty (sports) and current employer (Ohio State) really stand out. And this criticism isn't to say the contributors included aren't worthy of inclusion. But the glaring absence of diversity is undeniably a major weakness of the text, one that many people will justifiably find unacceptable.

Overall, I like this textbook. It has significant flaws, but I expect the tight focus and clear, engaging writing style will hold students’ attention and help them understand the core techniques of feature writing. I’m planning to shift to this textbook for the feature writing course I teach, but only with a good deal of supplementary content featuring a more diverse range of voices.

Reviewed by Katherine Fink, Associate Professor, Pace University on 8/19/21

The book covers many aspects of the feature reporting process, from story idea generation, to interviewing, to writing and editing/revising. The chapters on interviewing included some advice on effective communications, but I would have liked to... read more

The book covers many aspects of the feature reporting process, from story idea generation, to interviewing, to writing and editing/revising. The chapters on interviewing included some advice on effective communications, but I would have liked to see guidance specifically on reaching out to sources. This tends to be a major stumbling block for students—how to explain who they are and what they want to do, and how to be assertive with, but respectful of, potential interviewees. There was no index or glossary included.

The guidance on feature writing comes directly from the author, an experienced journalist, as well as several other journalists she interviewed for the book. I found no inaccuracies.

I found much of the advice useful and applicable to the journalistic process. Chapters related to structure (e.g. Types of Features, Writing the Lede, Crafting the Nut) were especially useful. Although this book is about writing (and not photography, or videography, or social media, etc.), I feel at least acknowledging the increasingly multimedia nature of journalism is important to make this work feel current. Journalists are increasingly expected to do more than just write.

Clarity rating: 4

The language is conversational, and the terminology is generally well defined. Some sentences could have been better proofread. I noticed typos throughout, including "Bassmaster Class" (should be "Classic") in the Writing the Lede chapter.

The text is internally consistent, with chapters of similar lengths that begin with quotes, and include some general advice as well as anecdotes from professionals.

The topics were split up nicely. As I read, I made notes throughout of ways I could divide chapters into reading assignments for courses I teach.

Topics were covered in a logical order, beginning with story idea generation, and then moving into interviewing, writing, and editing. The book wraps up with advice and anecdotes from professionals as well as links to examples of feature stories.

I did not encounter any problems with navigation or visuals in this book. I personally would prefer that the links open sites in new tabs, because that makes it easier to get back to the original text.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

As mentioned earlier, some of the writing could have been better proofread. There were several grammatical issues. Example from chapter 2: "The greatest ideas in the world don’t mean anything if you are not able to execute it" (should be "them").

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

The book includes several examples of feature stories and experiences of journalists. These examples could have represented a more diverse range of journalists and stories told. Also, the end of chapter 10 jumped out at me as being a bit insensitive. This section includes quotes from the journalist Brittany Schock about the delicate process of interviewing women who had lost their babies. A text box immediately following that segment compares the interview process to chess. While chess is an apt metaphor for certain kinds of (adversarial) interviews, it was jarring to see it described that way right after the infant mortality story example, without any transition.

Reviewed by Frances Winter, Professor, Massachusetts Bay Community College on 6/30/21

Coverage and appropriateness are good, but there is no index or glossary, which would be helpful to the reader in the way they always are, and also helpful to the author in identifying excessive repetition and occasional misplacement of some ideas. read more

Coverage and appropriateness are good, but there is no index or glossary, which would be helpful to the reader in the way they always are, and also helpful to the author in identifying excessive repetition and occasional misplacement of some ideas.

The content is accurate and unbiased, and I did not detect any factual error (although I am a composition teacher, not a communications teacher). However, language error/editing lapses (discussed below) is a major problem. Those errors are not figured into this rating; no reason for a double whammy.

Content is up to date and will not become obsolete any time soon; examples may have to be updated as time goes on.

The author’s relaxed, personal, enthusiastic prose is one of its great strengths. The style may be somewhat too informal for every teacher’s liking, but I found it enjoyable. My sense is that students will find it particularly accessible and engaging. It is not written in typical “textbook-ese,” which is refreshing. Jargon is explained naturally and simply. It is not rated a full 5 only because of the errors/typos (discussed further below) that make some sentences challenging to read. And editorial lapses, such as appears on the second page of the text (p. 8 in download), where the author announces “four tips” and then includes only three, also undermine the overall clarity.

The author’s terminology is consistent throughout. One small exception is an inset author’s use of the word “reporting” to stand for “research,” which gave me a moment’s pause. The chapters create an identifiable framework.

Several features of this book make it possible to use smaller reading sections in variable order. For one, there are lots of headings. In the “Writing to Be Read” chapter, specific elements of writing such as strong openings (“Writing the Lede”), defining and communicating main purpose (“Crafting the Nut”), or developing the body of a piece (“Body Building”), could be excerpted and used separately. The book also contains many multi-paragraph insets—comments from an established feature writer, extended examples—that can stand on their own. The last chapter, “Learning Features from the Experts,” is a collection of “essays” (feature-style: informal, heavy on description and dialogue) by different authors, each of which can also be used separately. The opening chapter, essentially an overview of feature writing, has such a good subsection on “Research” that I am planning to use it in my comp courses.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The textbook is organized into identifiable and logical chapters, and the many subheadings further organize. The breezy, flowing authorial voice does not lead to a really tight organization, but it is good enough. The one complaint I have is that there is a lot of repetition of ideas, particularly noticeable in the section on “Interviewing”: do your research; develop rapport with interviewee; have a conversation not an interrogation; be—or act—interested in the subject of the interview; really listen to your subject; don’t necessarily record or take notes right away. The author says this; the long inset from Adam Jarvy says this; ditto extended quotes from Lucas Sullivan and rest of Section. Another chapter on interviews appears later in the text in Chapter 19, “Spotlight on: Ted Conover.” Individually, these are all good comments/sources, but together they are overly repetitive. The different parts of this Section also say other useful things about interviews, but there is a steady drumbeat of reiterated points. I believe some repetition is useful, but parts of the book overdo it.

No navigation problems; images are clear; live links work. But two glitches show up consistently in my downloaded pdf. Whenever the letters “fi” should appear, a bracket shows up instead. E.g., pro[le (profile). Ff also comes up as Z: oZ bounds (off bounds). I’m still giving the book a 5 on this score with the assumption that the above glitches can be easily fixed (and may be a function of my machine?). This is a highly formatted text with many images and insets, all of which look good.

This is the book’s big weakness. There are way too many errors. Some are obviously typos/inadequate editing, such as missing and extra words: “…Brian Klems writes [about] the need to travel “deeply” as opposed to just widely....” “A profile on a new trend…has to be pitched in relatively short order, or it will not really [be] marketable anymore.“ “See how you can pitch stories to bring make outsiders insiders.” “One pitfall of being not completely ethical is that is you change the outcome for the story.” Some sentences fall apart or become illogical: ““I wasn’t going out to dinner…with someone I was writing about unless there was a journalism reason for me that.” “Now I am friends now with people I once wrote.” “The angle is all about the audience, so think how you can spin…to toddlers, teens, seniors, your local community, pets, business, food, travel and you may suddenly have 10 stories from one topic. “[As the sentence goes on, the “audience” becomes pets, food, and travel; I don’t think any of these entities are big readers.] One actual error that appears repeatedly is lack of parallel construction. To some, lack of parallelism may seem minor, and often it is subtle and I suppose can be given a bye. But sometimes it is more egregious: “Nut graph/Theme: A paragraph that shows the reader what exactly this story is about and why does this entity matter now?” One really awful error: a reference to “yes” or “know” answers.

No culturally insensitive or offensive comments. Examples are inclusive.

I wish this book could be revised, and much better edited, with input from people with more expertise than I have in feature writing, like communications faculty, because it has much to offer. I imagine the audience for this book—aspiring student writers—feeling excited and confident after reading it. It makes writing sound tremendously interesting and enjoyable, which we know it can be, but students don’t always. It makes writing sound accessible, not forbidding and monumental, as much academic writing feels to the students I teach, but rather familiar and doable. The section on research is strong, and the author’s relaxed, personal voice makes that activity a lot more enticing than many rhetorics. There is good writing advice throughout. I like this book, but think it needs to go through another draft or two.

Table of Contents

• I. Uncovering the Magic of Features
• II. Interviewing
• III. Writing to be Read
• IV. Revising and Being Read
• V. Learning Features from the Experts

Ancillary Material

About the book.

"Writing Fabulous Features" teaches the art and craft of feature writing to help readers learning to write non-fiction with flair.

About the Contributors

Dr. Nicole Kraft spent 25 years as an award-winning reporter, editor and magazine journalist while also working in public relations for professional sports and government communications.

She joined the Ohio State School of Communication in 2010, where she teaches Media Writing and Editing, Sports Media, Feature Writing and Media Law and Ethics. As an associate professor of clinical communication, her research focus includes the academic use of mobile technology among student-athletes, mobile technology use in journalism education and using technology to enhance classroom communication.

Nicole is the director of Ohio State’s Sports & Society Initiative and chair of Ohio State’s Council on Distance Education, Libraries and Information Technology. She remains an active sportswriter, covering the Columbus Blue Jackets, Ohio State basketball and horse racing for the Associated Press and The Columbus Dispatch.

She is the author of the book, “Always Get the Name of the Dog,” published by Routledge and available through Amazon.

Nicole earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Temple University, a master’s degree in communication from Ohio State University and a doctorate in educational leadership from Lamar University.

She was named an Apple Distinguished Educator in 2015.

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The Feature Story—Fifteen Minutes (and 500 Words) of Fame!

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

At the heart of all feature stories is human interest. This lesson asks students to write a profile of a classmate, with a particular focus on a talent, interest, or passion of that classmate. As an introduction to the feature article, students compare the characteristics of a hard news story to those of a feature story. They then practice writing about the same event in the two different styles. Next, they list and freewrite about their own talents and interests. These topics then become the focus of a feature story as students randomly select topics noted by classmates and write interview questions based on them. Finally, students interview a classmate, write a feature story, and share it with the class. This lesson enables students to practice interviewing techniques, develop voice, learn to write for an audience, and perhaps most importantly, celebrate their individual strengths.

Featured Resources

Qualities of a Feature Story : This handout lists the main characteristics of a feature story.

Printing Press : Students can use this online tool to publish their writing as a newspaper, flyer, brochure, or booklet.

From Theory to Practice

This lesson plan taps two pedagogical beliefs-students work best in collaborative and supportive environments, and moving beyond the typical essay formats can help students grow as writers. In Go Public! Encouraging Student Writers to Publish , Susanne Rubenstein explains that the writing teacher: "must create a classroom environment that allows her students to see themselves and each other as writers, not students. In this classroom-turned-writing-community, the writers support and encourage each other, and, through their efforts, not only as fellow writers but also as readers and as editors, they work to strengthen both the quality of each other's work and the confidence of the writer. . . within this classroom-turned-writing-community, writers are engaged in work that has meaning outside of the classroom." (15)

This notion of collaborative growth in the writing classroom fits naturally with writing feature stories, which move beyond the typical personal essay format and give students the chance to share significant personal information with one another. Rubenstein explains, "Certainly there is nothing wrong with teaching students to write personal essays . . . . But as a form it is perhaps overused in middle and high school classrooms, and when students begin to see it as ‘the way one writes in school,' they adopt a writing voice that is academic and artificial and calculated to please the teacher alone" (43). To avoid this situation, Rubenstein invites students to "experiment with different genres to find their strong suit" (43). Feature stories provide just the right solution: "Through the writing and reading of each [feature] story, students come to learn a lot about each other in a very short time, and we are well on our way to becoming a community of writers" (44).

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 9. Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
• 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

Sample newspapers and magazines (see Websites for possible online sources)

• Qualities of a Feature Story
• Prewriting Questions: What Makes you Interesting?
• Reviewer Response Sheet
• Sample Leads for Feature Stories
• Student Reflection Sheet

Preparation

• Collect issues of newspapers and magazine that students can use in class. Include both national and local publications.
• Collect sample feature stories that offer personality profiles. Look for recently published pieces in newspapers and magazines, especially pieces about people with whom students are familiar. A good source is Parade—The Sunday Newspaper Magazine . Also some local papers in their annual back to school issues publish feature stories about area teenagers. These are especially effective and engaging for students.
• Reviewer Response Sheet , if needed for response group work.
• The Society of Professional Journalists offers a succinct description of feature reporting that can be used for teacher reference.
• Test the Printing Press on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

Student Objectives

Students will

• read published feature stories and determine the characteristics of this genre.
• discover an appreciation for their own unique talents and those of their classmates.
• develop interviewing techniques and carry out an interview.
• consider the importance of audience.
• apply their knowledge by writing their own feature stories.
• employ all the steps of the writing process to create a polished piece.
• take the first steps toward writing for publication.

Session One

• Distribute copies of various newspapers and news magazines to small groups of students (3--4 students per group). Your goal during this session is to generate interest in the idea of a feature story and to guide students to understand the characteristics of the piece.
• Tell students to peruse the papers/magazines and find a hard news story. Ask each group to list the characteristics of the piece they find.
• Once groups have gathered the information, have each group report their findings. As the groups share the information, compile a class list of qualities of a news story on the board or on chart paper.
• Challenge students to peruse the same paper or magazine looking now for something that is almost a news story, but not quite. Ask them to look for a piece that gives more than the basic facts and that does more to tell a story. (If students are unfamiliar with journalistic writing, the teacher may need to offer help to individual groups.)
• Ask students to list the characteristics of this piece, and put their responses on the board. Use these two lists to help students understand the particular qualities of a feature story and its purpose. (Refer to Qualities of a Feature Story .)
• a recent school event such as a homecoming parade
• a spring dance
• the hiring of a new teacher/administrator/coach
• the induction of students into a group such as the National Honor Society
• the selection of students for a team
• a story about a student who has won some honor or achieved some special distinction.
• Ask each group to read both pieces aloud, and use the content in conjunction with the lists already on the board to illustrate and emphasize the qualities of each journalistic style. Introduce students to the concept of "hard news" vs. "soft news."

Session Two

• To help students find a focus for their feature stories, and, in doing so, to generate a positive sense of self in each student as he/she acknowledges his/her strengths and abilities, begin class with a brainstorming activity in which students make two lists: one listing their talents, and the other listing their passions/interests. Allow about four minutes for each list.
• Encourage students to think beyond the obvious. Tell them, for example, that it is just as appropriate to note the ability to wiggle one's ears as it is to note one's skill at tennis!
• Go quickly around the room, asking students to share one item from each list. Continue to encourage them to name an unusual talent or passion. Allow class comments and discussion, as this will generate enthusiasm for the project.
• Ask students a series of prewriting questions from the Prewriting Questions: What Makes you Interesting? to generate more material that highlights the uniqueness of each student.
• Instruct students to choose any one item from the talent list (it may be the one shared or another one entirely) and to freewrite about that talent for six minutes.
• Repeat this process with an item from the interest list.
• Finally, repeat with something from the responses to the What Makes You Interesting? prewriting questions.
• Ask for one student volunteer to share the topic of one of his or her freewrites. Put the topic on the board, and ask other students what they would like to know about the topic. Fill the board with their questions.
• Ask the student to read her or his freewrite, and direct the class to note how many of their questions were answered.
• Explain to the class that in six minutes, one would not expect a writer to be able to tell everything about his/her passion; but that this exercise demonstrates that there is much to tell and that an audience is interested.
• Use the questions on the board to generate discussion of what makes a good interview question. Guide students to see that the best questions lead to more questions. Promote a discussion of interview techniques in terms of note taking, courtesy, respecting privacy, etc.
• To read as a homework assignment, give students 2 or 3 sample feature stories that present human profiles, as gathered in the preparation of this lesson.

Session Three

• To begin the interview process and determine a feature story focus, give students each a slip of paper when they enter the classroom, and ask them to put two of their most significant interests, abilities, or unique experiences/qualities on that slip. Put the papers in a box.
• Allow each student to randomly draw a slip of paper. At this point, students should not acknowledge to whom the paper belongs. It's best if students do not know whom they will be interviewing at the early stages of planning the interview.
• Give students 10 or 15 minutes to list as many good questions as they can for these two topics. Then ask each student to pair up with another student, share the assigned topics and the lists of questions, and try to add to each other's lists.
• Begin the actual interview process. Establish interview pairs. This can be done either by a random draw, or the teacher can assign pairs in order to ensure that students are interviewing someone whom they do not know well.
• Allow ten minutes per student for each introductory interview. Encourage students to use this introductory time to explore a focus for the interview. (They do not have to use both interests/talents provided on the slip of paper, but having two choices can give students more options. Sometimes, moreover, a story can blend the two.)
• Tell interviewers to also seek out basic factual information.
• Remind students of the importance of strong quotes in a feature story. Encourage them to take detailed notes (or use tape or audio recorders, if preferred). Tell students that they will be given additional time during the next class session to take the interview further and to recheck important information.
• At the end of class, suggest that students who are unfamiliar with the subject(s) their interviewee is interested in should do further research on the topic at home. Remind students that professional writers often have to "do their homework" in terms of researching topics they are going to write about.
• Instruct all students to refine interview questions for homework and to determine what else they will need to know to write a complete story.
• Tell interviewers and interviewees to be thinking about a photograph that can accompany the story. This should be a photo of the interviewee involved in the activity the story describes or of something connected to the story (i.e., a photo of the artwork of a student who paints, the project of an Eagle Scout, the items a collector collects).

Session Four

• Choose one of the feature stories students read for homework at the end of Session Two, and use that to encourage class discussion on the design of the feature story.
• importance of a clear focus for the story.
• a strong, attention-getting opening (the lead).
• an equally memorable ending (often a quote).
• the use of correctly quoted material throughout.
• the inclusion of significant background information.
• verified factual data (including the subject's name spelled correctly!).
• the importance of a unique writing voice that captures the writer's own style.
• Have students determine the intended audience for this particular feature story.
• Point out the ways that the focus, language, background information, and other aspects change depending on the audience.
• Who is my audience? and
• What response do I want from this audience?
• Allow students to conduct the second phase of their interviews. Tell students to ask all remaining questions, verify important information (e.g., names, dates, spellings), and be sure they have a clear focus for the story.
• Ask students to discuss with their partners the choice of photograph. They might choose a picture that already exists, or, if it needs to be taken in class, the teacher should allow time and opportunity for that. (Note: If students don't have access to cameras, the teacher can provide a time for picture taking using his/her own or the school's digital or 35mm camera.)
• Instruct students to work on the first draft of the feature at home. Give students whatever amount of time is appropriate for the group to complete a first draft to share in response groups.

Session Five

• Have each pair of students join with another pair to share their stories and give and receive feedback. (Note: it is helpful to have both interviewer and interviewee in the same response group in case there is incorrect material in the story that needs to be corrected and revised.)
• If students are inexperienced with response, use the Reviewer Response Sheet to guide their work.
• Tell students to help each other create memorable and meaningful titles.
• When all students have received response on their stories, direct them to use this material to continue revising and rewriting their feature stories until they reach a final draft stage. If desired, students can compile the feature stories in a reader-friendly format using the Printing Press . The teacher can determine with student input how much additional time is need for completion.
• This project works especially well at the start of the school year (or at the start of a second semester class) to help build a sense of community in the classroom OR as an end-of-the-year activity to "wrap up" a course and to celebrate the strengths of each member of the class. In addition, it could be a good activity if new students move to the school or transfer into the class.
• hung with accompanying photographs on the classroom wall or on a school-wide bulletin board
• collected in a class publication
• submitted to the high school or local newspaper.
• Students may want to think about the "Feature Story of the Future," and write the story that could be written about them thirty years in the future.
• If a number of students are struggling with a particular aspect of the story (i.e., creating a good title, developing an interesting lead, organizing material logically), the teacher can conduct mini-workshops to help the group. For example, a mini-lesson on leads might include the Sample Leads for Feature Stories handout that promotes discussion of why certain leads work better than others and how weak leads can be improved.
• If students need more practice in mechanics of including quotations in their writing, the ReadWriteThink lessons Character Clash: A Mini-Lesson on Paragraphing and Dialogue and Inside or Outside? A Mini-Lesson on Quotation Marks and More can provide useful supplements to this activity.
• Have students use the Profile Publisher either as a template for gathering information on each other or as a way to publish the information that they find during their interviews.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Grade each feature story as a complete writing assignment. When students are writing and revising their stories, they should be guided by the specific characteristics outlined in the handout of Qualities of a Feature Story and in the Reviewer Response Sheet .
• What do you think is the strongest line in the story? Why?
• What do you think will most please the person the story is written about? Why?
• What part of the story are you still dissatisfied with? Why?
• What did you struggle with most in creating this story?
• Where could you include some more specific detail?
• What was the best piece of advice you got from your response group?
• Talk about yourself as a “journalist.” Is this a kind of writing you like or dislike? Why? What did you think about the interview process?
• Calendar Activities
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Harness the Power of Persuasive Writing: 10 Inspiring Feature Story Ideas

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: October 28, 2022  - Last updated: June 23, 2023

Categories Writing , Inspiration

Do you need a little inspiration for your next feature story? Check out our list of ten persuasive story ideas that will hook your readers! From powerful personal narratives to stories about overcoming adversity, these ideas will help you produce engaging content that engages your audience and drives conversions.

10 Feature Story Ideas

• The triumph of the underdog: Whether you’re covering an inspiring athlete or a small business that has beat the odds, this is a classic story idea that never gets old.
• Overcoming adversity: Everyone has experienced hardship at some point in life and detailing how someone overcame major obstacles makes for a compelling read.
• Saved by the community: Sometimes it takes a village to save someone from disaster, and sharing these stories of courage and resilience will inspire your readers to look out for one another.
• Making a difference: If there’s one thing we can all learn from great feature stories, it’s that every person has the potential to make a positive impact on others’ lives.
• Living on the edge: Whether you’re writing about extreme sports athletes, passionate explorers, or adventurous entrepreneurs, capturing people who push boundaries makes for an exciting read.
• Finding happiness in difficult times: Even though life can be tough sometimes, there are always ways to find joy and meaning in your everyday experiences.
• Success through hard work and persistence: From high-achieving professionals to emerging artists and creatives, this is an uplifting story that inspires us all to keep pushing forward no matter what challenges we face along the way.
• Breaking down barriers: Whether overcoming social prejudices or shattering glass ceilings, this is a powerful topic that will resonate with audiences of all backgrounds and beliefs.
• Inspiring tales from animal rescue organizations: Visiting shelters and talking with animal rescue experts can uncover compelling stories highlighting the amazing work being done to save animals in need.
• Uncovering the stories of the unheard voices: From political dissidents to those struggling with addiction, this is a powerful way to bring attention to people and causes that need a little help from their communities.

The Basics of Feature Writing

Feature writing is a great way to get your byline and hone your storytelling skills. But where do you start? Here are the basics you need to know to get started in the world of feature writing.

What is a Feature Story?

A feature story is a type of journalistic writing that tells a story from a human interest angle. Unlike most news stories, which focus on the facts of who, what, when, where, and why, a feature story digs deeper to explore the emotions and personal experiences behind the news. Feature stories can be profiles of interesting people, first-person accounts of events, or trend pieces that explore how current events affect people’s lives.

What Makes a Good Feature Story?

A good feature story has all the elements of a good news story—it should be well-reported and accurate—but it also goes beyond the bare facts to add color, emotion, and humanity. A good feature story will make the reader feel something, whether it’s anger, sadness, happiness, or intrigue. It will give the reader a new perspective on an event or help them understand another person’s experience in a way they could never have before.

How Do You Write a Feature Story?

Writing a successful feature story takes time, effort, and practice. Here are some tips to help you get started:

• Find a topic that interests you. A good place to start is by brainstorming people or places you know well. Once you have an idea of who or what you want to write about, start doing some research to see if there’s already been a lot written about your topic (in which case you may want to find another angle) or if there are gaps in the coverage that you could fill.
• Talk to people. The best way to get information for your story is to talk to people directly involved with the subject matter. If you’re writing about a specific event, talk to witnesses or people affected by it. If you’re writing about someone’s experience with an issue like addiction or homelessness, reach out and see if they’re willing to share their story with you. The more voices you can include in your story, the richer it will be.
• Go beyond the obvious. When researching your topic, look for stories that haven’t been told before or offer a new perspective on familiar events or issues. These are the stories that will capture readers’ attention and set your piece apart from all the other articles out there on the same subject matter.
• Write, rewrite, edit…and then edit some more! A successful feature story requires multiple drafts before it’s ready for publication. After each draft, put your article away for at least 24 hours so you can come back to it with fresh eyes; this will help you catch errors and spot areas that need improvement more easily than if you tried to edit immediately after writing. Then show your article to somebody else—a friend, family member, or coworker—and ask for their feedback; they may catch things you missed. After incorporating their suggestions (as well as any others from your editing process), give your article one last read-through before sending it off into the world!

How to Write a Feature Story that Sells

To write a feature story that sells, you need to understand what a feature story is and how it’s different from other types of stories. A feature story is a long-form piece of creative nonfiction that tells a human interest story.

It should be well-written and well-researched and have a strong central character or characters. If you can write a compelling feature story, you’ll be able to sell it to any number of publications.

How to Write a Compelling Feature Story

The best way to write a compelling feature story is to focus on the following elements:

• The Characters: The people in your story should be relatable, likable, and interesting. Readers should be able to see themselves in the characters or at least feel like they know them.
• The Problem: There needs to be some problem or conflict that the characters are trying to solve. This gives the story tension and keeps readers engaged.
• The Solution: The solution should be interesting and unique. It should also be something that readers can take away from the story and apply to their own lives.
• The Writing: The writing should be clear, concise, and engaging. You want readers to feel like they’re right there with the characters, experiencing everything firsthand.

How to Write a Feature Article: the Basics

A feature article is a type of soft news story. It contains all of the basic elements of a news story – who, what, where, when, and why – but it also has something known as the “human element.” This additional component sets a feature story apart from a hard news story; it’s what makes a feature story interesting and engaging.

Writing a feature article can be daunting. Where do you start? What are the basic components? Here’s a quick overview of how to write a feature story from start to finish.

The Inverted Pyramid

The first thing you need to know about writing a feature article is that it follows the inverted pyramid format. This means that the most important information (the who, what, where, when, and why) is at the story’s beginning, while the least important information is at the end.

The lead paragraph should contain all of the essential information about the story; everything else in the article should be secondary in importance. The lead should be no more than three or four sentences long; anything longer risks losing the reader’s attention.

After the lead, you’ll want to include a nut graph. This is a brief paragraph (one or two sentences) that states your article’s main theme or argument. Think of it as a mini-thesis statement.

The remainder of your article will focus on fleshing out this theme or argument. Remember to keep your language clear and concise; features are not the place for flowery prose or dense jargon. When in doubt, err on the side of simplicity.

Your article will conclude with a kicker – a short sentence (no more than 10 words) that sums up your article interestingly or memorably.

3 Ways to End a Feature Story with a Bang

As any seasoned writer knows, one of the most challenging aspects of writing a feature story is crafting a strong ending that ties up all the loose ends without sounding contrived or cliche.

Here are three tips to help you end your next feature story with a bang:

Leave them wanting more

One effective way to end a feature story is to leave readers wanting more. This can be done by raising more questions than you answer or hinting at future developments in the story. For example, if you’re writing about a new product to hit store shelves shortly, you could end your story with a quote from the CEO about the company’s plans for world domination. Tease readers with what’s to come, and they’ll come back for more.

Go out on a high note

Another option is to go out on a high note—literally. If your story has been largely positive up until this point, end it on an even more positive note by including an inspiring quote or heartwarming anecdote. This will leave readers feeling good about what they’ve just read, and they’ll be more likely to remember your story fondly long after they’ve finished reading it.

Draw attention to the bigger picture

Finally, you could choose to end your story by drawing attention to the bigger picture. If your feature story has been focused on a particular event or issue, use your concluding paragraph to step back and discuss the larger ramifications of what’s been happening. For instance, if you were writing about an upcoming election, you might use your conclusion to discuss the importance of voting and how every vote counts. By putting things in perspective, you can help readers see your story in a new light.

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Language Skills & Communicative Abilities

News Writing, Editorial Writing, Column Writing and Feature Writing

Write comprehensive notes on the following forms of journalistic writing:

1.News Writing

News is defined as information about an event, idea or opinion that is timely and that affects and interests a large number f people in a community.  News must fulfill the following requirements

–               It should not have been published any where before;

–               It should come to the readers for the first time;

–               A news must relate in one way or the other to the human activity;

–               It should have an element of interest for the readers

–               It should impart some sort of information or education to the readers;

–               It should be concise and accurate

News Characteristics

A.         It is accurate

1.         Factual accuracy means that e4very statement, every name and date, every age and address, every quotation is a verifiable fact

• Accuracy means not only correctness of specific detail but also correctness of general impression, the way the details are put together and the emphasis given.
• Accuracy is difficult to achieve because of the myriad facts which go into a story, the speed involved in modern journalism, the many people who help to produce the finished story;
• Balance in a news story is a matter of emphasis and completeness.  It is a reporter’s giving each fact its proper emphasis putting it in proper relation to every other fact, establishing its relative importance to the meaning of a story.
• Balance means selecting and arranging facts so as to give a balanced view of a news event.
• News is the factual report of an event not the event as a prejudiced person might see or as the reporters or sponsor might wish it to have been.
• A reporter should report news impartially and honestly
• It is difficult to understand all fact of the story.  When objectivity collides with complexity a good reporter should help the consumer see the objective facts in perspective.
• A news story must follow the inverted pyramid form and be written so tersely simply and clearly that the meaning is absolutely plain.
• Effective reporting is painstakingly precise in word choice, yet full of life and vigor, colorful, yet without personal tinting affectation or overwriting.
• The element of time is of prime consideration to reporters.
• Readers want the most recent information on topics in which they are interested.

C.           It is Objective

D.           it is concise and clear.

2.         Editorial Writing

Editorial page has occupied an importance place in the newspaper industry.   Editorial reflects the newspaper ideology and is considered the mouthpiece of the newspaper management.  Editorial is an important tool to build public opinion in a positive and constructive way on important national and international issues.  The basic principles of Editorial writing are:

Every editorial is made up of three parts:

• Introduction

a.         Introduction

The introduction is the first paragraph. It often begins with a general statement about the topic and ends with a more specific statement of the main idea. The purpose of the introduction is to:

• let the reader know what the topic is
• inform the reader about your point of view
• arouse the reader’s curiosity so that he or she will want to read about your topic

b.         Body

The body of the editorial follows the introduction. It consists of a number of paragraphs in which you develop your ideas in detail:

• Limit each paragraph to one main idea. (Don’t try to talk about more than one idea per paragraph.)
• Prove your points continually by using specific examples and quotations.
• Use transition words to ensure a smooth flow of ideas from paragraph to paragraph.

c.         Conclusion

The conclusion is the last paragraph. Its purpose is to:

• summarize your main points, leaving out specific examples

Kind of Editorials

Editorial are of four (4) kinds:

I           Civic editorials

II          Policy editorials

III         Big News editorials

IV        Obituary Editorials

A good editorial makes three things clear

–                      The subject or news peg –  the news event or current situation or occasion evoking editorial

–                      The reaction – clear-cut for or against, what the editorial writer wants the reader to think about.

–                      The reasons – facts or logical arguments to back the statement.  This organizational order is not only the most logical but it is the easiest for the beginner to learn.

Classification of Editorials

Editorials can be classified on the basis of functions as follows:

–                      to influence opinion;

–                      to call attention to a wrong/evil to enlighten readers

–                      to praise or to congratulate;

–                      to comment lightly on the news

3.         Column Writing:

Column is the creative expression covering all fields of journalism.  It also contains personal opinion of the writer, which is not welcomed in other form of news story writing.

A column may pass the projected judgements, make recommendations and may write freely without following the accepted boundaries of news writing.

The style as well approach of column writing is neither serious nor compulsive.  A column can be written on any aspect of human interest, it can be humorous, entertaining, sport, talking about people’s life, politics, good governance and may also deal with socio-economic issues such as finance, industry etc.

Qualities of a column, editorial and sometime a feature are intermingled, however, column offer an opportunity for variety in content that no feature or editorial can approach.

A Column should always carry the writer’s by-line and where necessary photographs may also be used.  Columns appear at regular intervals and usually in the same location in the publication in order to facilitate the readers.

Columns may be subject oriented such as those in hobbies or crafts and project the writer’s personal opinion and personality, offering humor, opinion and anecdotes.

Types of Columns:

Columns are considered very useful piece of material, which is flexible enough to fit in at various placed.  Columns can be divided in the following major types and classifications:

A)        Reporting-in-Depth Columns:

In this category background info, perspective and interpretation are given to any happening as a follow-up of any hard news.  The current news events are presented by relating to the past information and projecting future perspective.

b)           “I Think” or Opinionated Columns

Seasoned/experienced columnists usually write this type of columns.  The writer put himself at the driving seat and gives his opinion/observation as a specialist on the topic under discussion.

c)            Gossip Columns

The reader is attracted to this type of columns because it contains a juicy bit of gossip.  Column contain little expect its titillating value which may not be the writer’s exclusive domain.

d)        Humorous Columns

This type of column is considered light weight.  The writer tries to find the humorous aspect in life and write an article that will amuse reader.  These columns also spotlight on an event more clearly than thousands of words of explanation.

e)         Essay Columns

This require a perceptiveness or possible just and cover powering interesting in people that all authors do not possess.

f)             Personality Diary Columns

Diary columns come from public figures and usually written by writers who claim to be close with the concerned personality.  Such columns also may emanate from those who have special place in public like politician, super stars etc.  Most writers occasionally attempt this kind of wring.

g)           How-to-do or Advice Columns

This kind of column is intended to educate the readers through gentle instructions and usually appear on editorial pages.

4.         Feature Writing:

Feature is a non-news article giving background information on certain prominent events or personality in the news.

Features cover all the underlying causes as well as the background of the news story.  It provides guidance as well as entertainment to all the readers including those who are already well aware of the facts and figures of the subject.

The task of writing is usually much easier if you create a set of notes which outline the points you are going to make. Using this approach, you will create a basic structure on which your ideas can be built.

• Plans Get used to the idea of shaping and re-shaping your ideas before you start writing, editing and rearranging your arguments as you give them more thought.
• Analyze the question Make sure you understand what the question is asking for. What is it giving you the chance to write about? What is its central issue? Analyze any of its key terms and any instructions. If you are in any doubt, ask your tutor to explain what is required.
• Generate ideas

You need to assemble ideas.  Make a note of anything, which might be relevant to your answer. These might be topics, ideas, observations, or instances from your study materials. Put down anything you think of at this stage.

• Choosing topics

Extract from your brainstorm listings those topics and points of argument, which are of greatest relevance to the question and its central issue?

• Put topics in order

Put these chosen topics in some logical sequence. At this stage you should be formulating a basic response to the question, even if it is provisional and may later be changed. Try to arrange the points so that they form a persuasive and coherent argument.

• Arrange your evidence

All the major points in your argument need to be supported by some sort of evidence. Compile a list of brief quotations from other sources which will be offered as your evidence.

•   Make necessary changes

Whilst you have been engaged in the first stages of planning, new ideas may have come to mind. Alternate evidence may have occurred to you, or the line of your argument may have shifted somewhat.

• Finalize essay plan

The structure of most features plans can be summarized as Introduction – Arguments – Conclusion. State your case as briefly and rapidly as possible, present the evidence for this case in the body, then sum up and try to ‘lift’ the argument to a higher level in your conclusion.

• Personalities
• Commemoration
• Social and Cultural Sources
• Science and Technology
• Psychological Features
• Instruction and Educational sources
• Investigative features

Sources f Feature

5.         Writing Interview

Defining Interview:

Different scholars have defined interview differently, however, most of them agreed that

“ Asking questions to obtain opinion, ideas or special information on a topic of interest to the public from a prominent person or a recognized authority”

Due to the public acceptance and popularity amongst the reader, the newspapers regularly include interviews in their publications.  Interview is one of the most widely used forms of journalistic techniques.

Interviews have four major categories

a)            Informative Interviews : it involves gathering of information about new events or issues

b)            Feature Interviews : Usually conducted with a celebrity like a movie star, sports hero, politician etc.

c)            Opinion Interview: – Conducted with prominent persons to sought opinion on an active issue.

d)            Symposium Interview : it involves several people talking on the same topic to get a variety of viewpoint.

Art of Interview:

Before conducting interview the moderator or interviewer needs to be prepared thoroughly.  He/She must follow the following general criteria before conducting an interview:

• Selection of topic for interview
• Selection of Interviewee
• Contact with the Source
• Selection of place for interview
• Selection of date and time for interview
• Conducting research on interviewee.
• Gathering all relevant research/information on the topic
• Gathering information related to interviewee e.g. his/her special interest, his past accomplishments, personal ideology and weaknesses.
• Preparing a comprehensive list of questionnaire
• Arranging all technical requirements and equipment needs.

The interviewer should following these interview techniques:

• Introduce yourself clearly and accurately;
• Be sure to get the person’s name and title;
• Be friendly, sympathetic and courteous;
• Begin the interview with light and interesting question
• Avoid Yes/no questions
• Be courageous and prepared to draw questions from the ongoing discussions
• Avoid ambiguous question
• Do not allow the interviewee to take control of the situation or to misguide you
• Never agree to ask pre-agreed questions
• Make sure that you understand what the interviewee had said
• Keep on probing until the point is fully explained.

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The origin of all things: Kyotographie 2024 – a photo essay

The 12 th annual Kyotographie photography festival features 13 exhibitions staged in striking locations across the Japanese city of Kyoto. Photographers from around the world submitted pictures on the theme of ‘source’

• The Kyotographie international photography festival runs until 12 May

S pring in Kyoto ushers in cherry blossom season, but it also marks the return of one of the biggest photo festivals in Asia. Kyotographie, now in its 12th year, fuses the past and present with its striking images and unique locations. The 13 exhibitions are staged in temples, galleries and traditional private homes across the Japanese city, showcasing the work of national and international photographers.

The festival is loosely centred on a theme – and this year the directors, Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, asked participants to focus on the word “source” by delving into the essence of beginnings and the nexus of creation and discovery.

The Yamomami struggle. Photograph by Claudia Andujar

The source is the initiator, the origin of all things. It is the creation of life, a place where conflict arises or freedom is obtained; it is the space in which something is found, born or created. It is a struggle Claudia Andujar and the Yanomami shaman and leader Davi Kopenawa know too well. The Yanomami Struggle is the first retrospective exhibition in Japan by the Brazilian artist and activist Andujar with the Yanomami people of Brazil.

It is more than 50 years since she began photographing the Yanomami, the people of the Amazon rainforest near Brazil’s border with Venezuela, an initial encounter that changed their lives. Andujar’s work is not just a showcase of her photographic talent but, with Kopenawa accompanying the exhibition to Japan for the first time, it is a platform to bring the Yanomami’s message to a wider Asian audience.

The Yanomami Struggle. Photograph by Claudia Andujar

The first part of the exhibition features photographs taken by Andjuar in the 1970s, alongside artwork by the Yanomami people and words by Kopenawa. The second part narrates the continuing violence inflicted by non-Indigenous society on the Yanomami. The project is a platform for the Yamomani people to be seen and protected from ongoing threats. The exhibition, curated by Thyago Nogueira from São Paulo’s Instituto Moreira Salles, is a smaller version of one that has been touring the world since 2018.

The Yanomami Struggle, by Claudia Andujar, and artwork by the Yanomami people.

The Moroccan artist Yassine Alaoui Ismaili (Yoriyas) is showing new work made during his Kyotographie artist-in-residence programme for young Africans. The images from the Japanese city feature alongside his project Casablanca Not the Movie.

Children Transform the Sheep for Eid al-Adha into a Playground in Casablanca. Photograph by Yassine Alaoui Ismaili (Yoriyas)

Yoriyas gave up his career as a breakdancer and took up photography as a means of self-expression. His project Casablanca Not the Movie documents the streets of the city where he lives with candid shots and complex compositions. His work, which combines performance and photography, encourages us to focus on how we inhabit urban spaces. The exhibition’s clever use of display and Yoriyas’s experience with choreography force the viewer to see the work at unconventional angles. He says: “The camera frame is like a theatre stage. The people in the frame are my dancers. By moving the camera, I am choreographing my subjects without even knowing it. When an interesting movement catches my eye, I press the shutter. My training has taught me to immediately understand space, movement, connection and story. I photograph in the same way that I choreograph.”

The contrasts in Casablanca take many forms, including social, political, religious and chromatic. Photograph by Yoriyas

From Our Windows is a collaboration bringing together two important Japanese female photographers, both of whom shares aspects of their lives through photography, in a dialogue about different generations. The exhibition is supported by Women in Motion, which throws a spotlight on the talent of women in the arts in an attempt to reach gender equality in the field. Rinko Kawauchi, an internationally acclaimed photographer, chose to exhibit with Tokuko Ushioda who, at 83, continues to create vibrant new works. Kawauchi says of Ushioda: “I respect the fact that she has been active as a photographer since a time when it was difficult for women to advance in society, and that she is sincerely committed to engaging with the life that unfolds in front of her.” This exhibition features photographs taken by each of them of their families.

Photograph by Rinko Kawauchi.

Kawauchi’s two bodies of work, Cui Cui and As It Is, focus on family life. The first series is a family album relating to the death of her grandfather and the second showcases the three years after the birth of her child. Family, birth, death and daily life are threads through both bodies of work that help to create an emotional experience that transcends the generations.

Rinko Kawauchi and Tokuko Ushioda at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art

Kawauchi says: “My works will be exhibited alongside Ushioda. Each of the works from the two series are in a space that is the same size, located side by side. The works show the accumulation of time that we have spent. They are a record of the days we spent with our families, and they are also the result of facing ourselves. We hope to share with visitors what we have seen through the act of photography, which we have continued to do even though our generations are different, and to enjoy the fact that we are now living in the same era.”

Ushioda’s first solo exhibition features two series: the intimate My Husband and also Ice Box, a fixed-point observation of her own and friends’ refrigerators. Ushioda says: “I worked on that series [Ice Box] for around 20 years or so. Like collecting insects, I took photographs of refrigerators in houses here and there and in my own home, which eventually culminated in this body of work.”

Entries from Tokuko Ushida’s series Ice Box.

James Mollison’s ongoing project Where Children Sleep is on display at the Kyoto Art Centre with a clever display that turns each photograph into its own bedroom.

A child portrayed in Where Children Sleep, Nemis, Canada.

Featuring 35 children from 28 countries, the project encourages viewers to think about poverty, wealth, the climate emergency, gun violence, education, gender issues and refugee crises. Mollison says: “From the start, I didn’t want to think about needy children in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations.” Featuring everything from a trailer in Kentucky during an opioid crisis and a football fan’s bedroom in Yokohama, Japan, to a tipi in Mongolia, the project offers an engrossing look at disparate lives.

From Where Children Sleep, Nirto, Somalia

Joshim, India. Photographs by James Mollison

Phosphor, Art & Fashion (1990-2023) is the first big retrospective exhibition devoted to the Dutch artist Viviane Sassen . It covers 30 years of works, including previously unseen photographs, and combines them with video installations, paintings and collages that showcase her taste for ambiguity and drama in a distinctive language of her own.

Eudocimus Ruber, from the series Of Mud and Lotus, 2017. Photograph by Viviane Sassen and Stevenson

The exhibition opens with self-portraits taken during Sassen’s time as a model. “I wanted to regain power over my own body. With a man behind the camera, a sort of tension always develops, which is often about eroticism, but usually about power,” she says. Sassen lived in Kenya as a child, and the series produced there and in South Africa are dreamlike, bold and enigmatic. She describes this period as her “years of magical thinking”. The staging of the exhibition in an old newspaper printing press contrasts with the light, shadows and bold, clashing colours of her work. The lack of natural light intensifies the flamboyant tones of the elaborately composed fashion work.

Dior Magazine (2021), and Milk, from the series Lexicon, 2006. Photographs by Viviane Sassen and Stevenson

Viviane Sassen’s immersive video installation at the Kyoto Shimbun B1F print plant. Photograph by Joanna Ruck

The source of and inspiration for Kyotographie can be traced to Lucien Clergue, the founder of Les Rencontres d’Arles, the first international photography festival, which took place in 1969. Arles, where Clergue grew up and lived all his life, was a canvas for his photography work in the 1950s. Shortly after the second world war, many Roma were freed from internment camps and came to Arles, where Clergue forged a close relationship with the community. Gypsy Tempo reveals the daily life of these families – their nomadic lifestyle, the role of religion and how music and dance are used to tell stories.

Draga in Polka-Dot Dress, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1957. Photographs by Lucien Clergue

Little Gypsy Girl in the Chapel, Cannet 1958

During this time, Clergue discovered, and then helped propel to fame, the Gypsy guitarist Manitas de Plata and his friend José Reyes. Manitas went on to become a famous musician in the 1960s who, together with Clergue, toured the world, including Japan.

Kyotographie 2024 was launched alongside its sister festival, Kyotophonie , an international music event, with performances by Los Graciosos, a band from Catalonia who play contemporary Gypsy music. Meanwhile, the sounds of De Plata can be heard by viewers of Clergue’s exhibition.

The Magic Circle, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1958, by Lucien Clergue.

Kyotographie 2024 runs until 12 May at venues across Kyoto, Japan.

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Scaachi Koul Joins Slate as Senior Writer

Koul will write for slate’s culture and human interest sections..

We’re thrilled to announced that Scaachi Koul is joining Slate as a senior staff writer for culture and human interest.

Koul is a writer and podcaster who previously worked as a culture writer for BuzzFeed News. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Hairpin, the Globe and Mail, and Jezebel, and she is the author of the book of essays One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter . Koul is the co-host of the popular podcast Scamfluencers,  and she has appeared in a number of documentaries, including Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the five-part documentary series that details the toxic world behind ’90s and 2000s kids TV.

She has also been a terrific Slate contributor across our site and podcasts writing about the short-lived presidential campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy and Law & Order’s identity crisis , and guest hosting for The Waves .

“I’m so excited that Scaachi is making Slate her home base for her essays, culture criticism, reported features, and more,” said Slate’s editorial director Jeffrey Bloomer. “We are thrilled to have her—she has a ton of great ideas and enthusiasm and is, at the very least, going to galaxy-brain our reality television coverage to a new level.”

Koul will mainly be writing for Slate but expect to hear her pop up on your favorite Slate podcast from time to time.

Koul’s first day will be June 3.

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An NPR editor who wrote a critical essay on the company has resigned after being suspended

FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) stands on North Capitol Street on April 15, 2013, in Washington. A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal reviews resigned on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal views resigned on Wednesday, attacking NPR’s new CEO on the way out.

Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR’s business desk, posted his resignation letter on X, formerly Twitter, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended for five days for violating company rules about outside work done without permission.

“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” written about in his essay, Berliner said in his resignation letter.

Katherine Maher, a former tech executive appointed in January as NPR’s chief executive, has been criticized by conservative activists for social media messages that disparaged former President Donald Trump. The messages predated her hiring at NPR.

NPR’s public relations chief said the organization does not comment on individual personnel matters.

The suspension and subsequent resignation highlight the delicate balance that many U.S. news organizations and their editorial employees face. On one hand, as journalists striving to produce unbiased news, they’re not supposed to comment on contentious public issues; on the other, many journalists consider it their duty to critique their own organizations’ approaches to journalism when needed.

In his essay , written for the online Free Press site, Berliner said NPR is dominated by liberals and no longer has an open-minded spirit. He traced the change to coverage of Trump’s presidency.

“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”

He said he’d brought up his concerns internally and no changes had been made, making him “a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love.”

In the essay’s wake, NPR top editorial executive, Edith Chapin, said leadership strongly disagreed with Berliner’s assessment of the outlet’s journalism and the way it went about its work.

It’s not clear what Berliner was referring to when he talked about disparagement by Maher. In a lengthy memo to staff members last week, she wrote: “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving their mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful and demeaning.”

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed some of Maher’s past tweets after the essay was published. In one tweet, dated January 2018, Maher wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist.” A post just before the 2020 election pictured her in a Biden campaign hat.

In response, an NPR spokeswoman said Maher, years before she joined the radio network, was exercising her right to express herself. She is not involved in editorial decisions at NPR, the network said.

The issue is an example of what can happen when business executives, instead of journalists, are appointed to roles overseeing news organizations: they find themselves scrutinized for signs of bias in ways they hadn’t been before. Recently, NBC Universal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde has been criticized for service on paid corporate boards.

Maher is the former head of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR’s own story about the 40-year-old executive’s appointment in January noted that she “has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization.”

In his resignation letter, Berliner said that he did not support any efforts to strip NPR of public funding. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote.

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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