Feature stories come in a wide variety. Here are a few of the most common types:
Profiles or Personality Features: Profiles describe interesting people. These people may have overcome a disability, pursued an unusual career or become famous because of their colorful personalities. To be effective, profiles must do more than list an individual’s achievements or important dates in the individual’s life. They must reveal the person’s character. To gather the necessary information, feature writers often watch their subjects at work; visit them at home; and interview their friends, relatives and business associates. Some profile subjects may surprise reporters by revealing their most personal and embarrassing secrets. Completed profiles quote and describe their subjects. The best profiles are so revealing that readers and viewers feel as though they have actually talked to the people.
Reporters can use their imaginations when thinking about whom to interview. For example, they can go straight to those involved in a situation. Instead of interviewing the police about a drug problem, or faculty members about students who cheat, reporters may interview the drug users and cheaters themselves- specific individuals who seem to be representative of a larger issue.
Tim Norris of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a visual profile about Italians’ memories of early life in Milwaukee. He used the sentence “Turn the page.” as an effective transition between quotes, illustrating movement from one time period to another:
In Baldassaro’s and Vecchio’s album of voices, native-born Italians who made their lives in Milwaukee say things that sometimes reinforce stereotypes and sometimes explode them.
“My grandfather came over here because his brother sent for him. My dad came over to Chicago because his brother sent for him. My dad was an artisan, put up altars, marble altars, plaster altars, statues.” Turn the page. “My grandfather, his name was Cortis, had a little store-near the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Depot-that sold cigars, tobacco, candy. He made his own candy, and he had a little ice cream parlor. He made his own ice cream. They sold fruit and all that to people taking a trip, taking a train.” Turn the page.
“When they took down the church-our Lady of Pompeii-my heart went with the church. We’ll never forget it. They had a hall down there, weddings, receptions, banquets, meetings. People were baptized there, married there, given the funerals there. That church was our life.”
Turn the page. “The schools told us we shouldn’t speak Italian. But most of us spoke Italian at home. My grandmother was the cook, and if I wanted to eat, I’d have to talk Italian.” Turn the page. “After me, my mother had a little girl and a boy. When they were two and a half years old and eight months old, there was an epidemic. My little sister died in the late afternoon. My little brother died in the night.”
Turn the page. “I quit school because all my friends living around me quit. They were a little older than I was, and we had to walk from Chicago and Jefferson streets to Knapp and Jefferson, to Jefferson Street School. That was a long way to walk. So I quit at about 15. I worked making lampshades, sewing ‘em by hand at Chicago and Broadway. I worked about three years. Then I met my husband.”
Historical Features: Historical features commemorate the dates of important events, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Hiroshima or the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. News organizations also publicize historical features on lOOth birthdays and on the anniversaries of the births and deaths of famous people. The following story, distributed by the North American Newspaper Alliance, typifies this kind of historical feature:
MATEWAN, W.Va.-The most infamous episode in the annals of Appalachia erupted on Blackberry Creek 100 years ago. The feud between the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, two powerful mountain clans, lasted for about 15 years. When the fighting finally subsided, more than 100 men, women and children had been killed or wounded, and the region’s residents generally were viewed by the rest of the country as a bunch of murderous moonshine-swilling hillbillies who liked nothing better than to loll about the front porch, picking their toes and taking potshots at each other.
Other historical features are tied to current events that generate interest in their topics. If a tornado, flood or earthquake strikes the city, news organizations are likely to present stories about earlier tornadoes, floods or earthquakes. During the impeachment and trial of President Bill Clinton, news organizations prepared historical stories about the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868.
Historical features may also describe famous landmarks, pioneers and philosophies; improvements in educational, entertainment, medical and transportation facilities; and changes in an area’s racial composition, housing patterns, food, industries, growth, religions and wealth.
Every region, city and school is likely to have experienced some interesting events. A good feature editor will learn more about those events, perhaps by consulting historical documents or by interviewing people who witnessed or participated in them.
Adventure Features: Adventure features describe unusual and exciting experiences- perhaps the story of someone who survived an airplane crash, climbed a mountain, sailed around the world, served in the Peace Corps or fought in a war. In this type of feature story, quotations and descriptions are especially important. After a catastrophe, for example, feature writers often use the survivors’ accounts to recreate the scene. Many writers begin with the action-their stories’ most interesting and dramatic moments:
“It was the 10th of July, 1969, approximately 5 p.m.,” said Steve Jefferson, one of the Vietnam veterans attending classes here. “Myself and two sergeants were driving down the road in a Jeep. Theoretically, we shouldn’t have been in this situation. We should have been accompanied by more men in another Jeep, but I always thought that when my time was up, it was up. It was going to happen no matter what.
“There was a white flash and a pop, and the next thing I knew I was lying in the middle of the road.
“I thought we had hit a hole, and that I had flipped out of the Jeep. I always rode kind of haphazardly in the Jeep, with one leg hanging out one side of it. I really thought I had fallen out, and they had kept going without me; you know, as a joke.
“Then I turned and saw the Jeep overturned and on fire by the side of the road. I touched my arm with my good hand, and it was all bloody. It finally dawned on me that it was an ambush.
I heard some rifle fire but, at the time, didn’t realize they were shooting at me.
“I crawled over to the side of the road, away from the Jeep, and hollered for the other guys. There was no answer. . . .”
Seasonal Features: Editors and news directors often assign feature stories about seasons and holidays: Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Friday the 13th and the first day of spring. Such stories are difficult to write because, to make them interesting, reporters must find a new angle. Yet it can be done:
Thanks giving, 1999. At the age of 6, Julia had only a vague idea of what Thanksgiving involved. Getting together with family, eating lots of good food and drawing pictures of Pilgrims and Indians were the extent of her knowledge. But a police officer named Len changed all that.
Len Romano loved people and it showed. Through his job, Len heard of families who had more troubles than they could handle.
Quietly, he would make their names available to people who wanted to share their own good fortune.
This particular Thanksgiving, Jean’s family brought groceries to a frame house by the river. The father was in the hospital again. He was fired from his dishwashing job because his periodic illnesses forced him to miss so much work. The mother could not find work. The three children were all too young to work.
Explanatory Features: Explanatory features are also called “local situation” or “interpretive” features or “sidebars.” In these, reporters provide more detailed descriptions or explanations of organizations, activities, trends or ideas in the news. After news stories describe an act of terrorism, an explanatory feature may examine the terrorists’ identity, tactics and goals. After a bank robbery, an explanatory feature may describe the training banks give their employees to prepare them for robberies or may reveal more about a typical bank robber, including the robber’s chances of getting caught and probable punishment.
One follow-up won a Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service. An explosion killed 111 men in an Illinois mine, and Joseph Pulitzer II, publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, asked his staff to thoroughly review the tragedy. Pulitzer wanted to know what would be done to improve mine safety. What would be done to help the miners’ families? Also, who was responsible for the tragedy, and were they likely to be punished for it? Notice that the story starts with the action. Also notice the reporter’s use of detail:
The clock in the office of the Centralia Coal Company’s Mine No.5 ticked toward quitting time on the afternoon of March 25. As the hands registered 3:27 and the 142 men working 540 feet underground prepared to leave the pit at the end of their shift, an explosion occurred.
The blast originated in one of the work rooms in the north- western section of the workings. Fed by coal dust, it whooshed through the labyrinth of tunnels underlying the town of Wamac, Ill., on the southern outskirts of Centralia.
Thirty-one men, most of whom happened to be near the shaft at the time, made their way to the cage and were brought out alive, but the remaining 111 were trapped. Fellow workmen who tried to reach them shortly after the explosion were driven back by poisonous fumes.
How-to-Do-it Features
How-to-do-it features tell readers how to perform some task. They may describe a tangible project like building a house, planting a garden or training a puppy. They may focus on psychological issues, such as strengthening a marriage or overcoming shyness. Or they may explain how to find a physician or organize receipts for tax time.
Inexperienced reporters tend to preach or dictate to their audience, presenting their own opinions. Veteran reporters gather facts from several sources, including books and magazine articles. They also interview experts and get tips from people who have done what their stories describe. In addition, good reporters try to observe or participate in the “how-to-do-it” procedure itself, such as building a bird feeder or winterizing a car, to better understand their topic.
Reporters divide the task into simple, clear, easy-to-follow steps. They tell viewers and readers what materials are needed and the cost in money and time. Often they conclude such stories with a list or summary of the process, such as “eight ways to build self-confidence in children.”
