Reporting and Writing IINews reactive features

Features

The truth is that trying to make distinctions between news and features does not get us very far. In fact, it is positively dangerous. It produces narrow thinking which can restrict coverage of news to conventional subjects and puts writing it into the unimaginative straitjacket of a formula. With features, it encourages the insidious idea that normal standards of precision and thorough research don’t apply and that they can be a kind of low-fact product, instantly recognisable from their lack of capital letters.”

David RandallThe Universal Journalist

News-reactive features

Colour piece A pure description of a place, time or event often using some minor detail to symbolise the wider story.

Backgrounder Behind the scenes pieces describe how something works, or the themes behind an issue or debate.

Profile A study of a person, business or organisation at the centre of a story.

Interview Can either be arranged as a story or in a Q&A format - but the key to either is good quotes.

Timeline “The story so far” – useful in long-running issues. Often written in brief, punchy language.Vox pop A collection of short, verbatim reactions from people

who are relevant to the story

E.g. Boris Island

Colour piece A description of the countryside, estuary and nature reserve that might soon be shattered by turbine engines.

Backgrounder A look at the debate over why a new airport is needed, and the suggestions for where it could go.

Profile Lord Foster – the architect. Interview Boris Johnson – a Q&A about why peaceful Kent is the

best place for his noisy London airport…Timeline Key dates, from the announcement of the airport plan to the latest development.Vox pop What do people in Medway think?

But the best features are always about people.

Can be based on statistics, surveys, crimes, debates, wars, famines, droughts, events or trends…

Features

The Guardian, September 28

Killers on the loose: the deadly viruses that threaten human survivalhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/28/deadly-viruses-ebola-marburg-sars?INTCMP=SRCH

Click icon to add picture

Killers on the loose - intro

Astrid Joosten was a 41-year-old Dutch woman who, in June 2008, went to Uganda with her husband. At home in Noord-Brabant, she worked as a business analyst. Both she and her husband, Jaap Taal, a financial manager, enjoyed annual adventures, especially to Africa. The journey in 2008, booked through an adventure-travel outfitter, took them to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to mountain gorillas. While there, the operators offered an optional trip, to a place called the Maramagambo Forest, where the chief attraction was a peculiar site known as Python Cave. African rock pythons lived there, languid and content, grown large and fat on a diet of bats.

Killers on the loose

In paragraph 4 the bat-carried virus Marburg is first named, but the case study continues…

After a few days she began suffering organ failure. Her doctors suspected Lassa fever and moved her to a hospital in Leiden, where she developed a rash and conjunctivitis; she haemorrhaged. She was put into an induced coma, a move dictated by the need to dose her more aggressively with antiviral medicine. […] Blood samples, sent to a lab in Hamburg, confirmed the diagnosis: Marburg. Astrid worsened. As her organs shut down, she lacked oxygen to the brain, suffered cerebral oedema, and before long she was declared brain-dead. "They kept her alive for a few more hours, until the family arrived," Taal told me. "Then they pulled out the plug and she died within a few minutes."

Killers on the loose

After 609 words of case study we get a more basic “intro” to the issue

Infectious disease is all around us. It's one of the basic processes that ecologists study, along with predation and competition. Predators are big beasts that eat their prey from outside. Pathogens (disease-causing agents, such as viruses) are small beasts that eat their prey from within. Although infectious disease can seem grisly and dreadful, under ordinary conditions, it's every bit as natural as what lions do to wildebeests and zebras. 

Intro styles

Standfirst Drop intro

Case study

Narrative One-liner Joke

In features, the intro can be a combination of style. The case study, written in a narrative form, creates the same tension as the first line of a traditional drop intro.

The Guardian

Click icon to add pictureIntroExtended drop intro/ case study 434 words. Source: Alicia Duerson, narrative style.

Main #1818 words, source: Dr Ann McKee and the journalist (deals with the “science bit” in one large chunk). Heavy on detail but light on quotes. Uses them in the last three pars very effectively.

The Guardian

Click icon to add pictureMain #2871 words, source: Alicia Duerson. Returns to theme of the opening, with heavy use of quotes to convey emotion. Allows her to tell her husband’s story.

ConclusionBoth sources used. Summarises Dr Ann McKee’s findings with selective use of quotes. Ends on powerful quote from Duerson.

How the feature was written

Award This story won the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2012.They praised how he wove together three strands of the story:The celebrity Dave Duerson emotionThe scientist Dr Ann McKee factThe journalist Ed Pilkington impressions

The interview with McKee would have been technicaland hard to quote – Pilkington uses his impressions of the brain bank as a cipher, to make that part of the story easier to tell and more compelling to read.

How the feature was written

Standfirst The indirect start is offset by a standfirst that revealsDuerson killed himself and that his brain was donated.

Intro Establishes Duerson’s celebrity and his fall, ends on a cliffhanger

Main #1 Explains, in clear terms, the science behind Duerson’scondition

Main #2 Returns to Duerson’s story in more detail – but now weare armed with a better understanding of what’s happening to him and why, and the tragic consequences for him and his family.

End After drawing Duersons personal conclusion, the storyreturns to the brain bank to fill in the wider picture.

The New Yorker

Click icon to add pictureIntro1,119 words. Flashback narrative – very extended drop intro style. Source: case study of Kyle Turley, NFL player.

Intro #2726 words. Introduces dog fighting – heavy use of narrative description.

The New Yorker

Click icon to add pictureMain #12,086 words. Dr Ann McKee and Bennet Omalu – like the Guardian article, the science is heavily paraphrased. Quotes used for anecdote, not technical details.

Main #22,335 words. More scientists, again mostly paraphrased and widening out to Nascar racing.

The New Yorker

Click icon to add pictureMain #31,405 words. Dog sanctuary, more on dog fighting and anecdotes from football players. Official response from NFL.

Conclusion179 words. Uses old article on dog fighting to draw parallel with conditions for pro footballers. The two threads of the story meet elegantly at the end.

How it was written

Sources There are at least 15 named sources in this story, with evidence of more used for background details:Roger Goodell (NFL), Ira Casson (NFL), Dr Ann McKee(brain bank), Bennet Omalu (head injury expert), Nascar (official stats), NFL (offficial stats), Kevin Guskiewicz (concussion), Ann Alums (sanctuary), Dog fighting journal article, Carl Semenic (dog fighting book), Karl Turley (NFL player), Chris Nowinski (NFL player), archives (including quotes from President Theodore Roosevelt and historian John Sayle Watterson)

How it was written

Standfirst Even more direct: “How different are dogfighting and football?”

Intro Establishes celebrity and intrigue, with the sudden illhealth of a fit, young man. A compelling case study.

Body Scientists interviewed in depth but most details areexplained in reported speech not quotes, to ensure it remains accessible to the reader.Sports players etc. are allowed to tell their stories in extended sections of quotes.

End Brings together the various strands of the story in one well-found quote.

Feature writing tips

Full of facts Features are creative, but they are also based on finelydetailed reporting. Never write long passages off the top of your head.

People, not Find ways to make your stories about people – build things them around case studies and interviews, and bring

people to life with as much detail as you can. Fill yournotebook with observations as well as quotes.

Quote choice Prioritise quotes from people that your readers will relate to, and who use normal, emotive language. Nothing will kill your feature faster than robotic quotes.

Writing a feature

Music piracy Musicmetric, an internet analyst company, has published a survey of BitTorrent use in the UK over the first six months of 2012.In plain language, it is the charts for illegal downloads.You have figures by country, and UK figures broken down to specific towns.

Music feature

Angles Number one with a bullet in the UK is Ed SheeranYou have spoken to him and Dave Grohl while coveringa music festival.Other celebrities have campaigned for tougher lawson piracy (including Lily Allen, James Blunt and Taio Cruz) – background?This week Japan brought in new laws which make piracy punishable by two years in prison or a £15,000fine (two million yen).Local angles: figures for each town, plus what artists are popular where? (Bizarre ones: Neil Sadaka in a Scottish town)

Music feature

Deadline 1,000 words plus a good standfirst by 5pm Friday

It can be one long story, or you can use sidebars or factfiles to split information up.Give me two good picture ideas to support the feature.You will be working on this during the Friday sessionBut not Thursday – Ron’s taking you for that one