CONCEPCION HOLY CROSS COLLEGE

Minane, Concepcion, Tarlac

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
First Semester A.Y. 2022 – 2023

RESEARCH
(MIDTERM)
IN
CAMPUS JOURNALISM

DIFFERENT TOPICS FOR

FEATURE STORIES

SUBMITTED BY:
QUIAMBAO PATRICIA MAE M.

SUBMITTED TO:
MRS. BELLA C. MERCADO
DIFFERENT TOPICS FOR FEATURE STORIES

I. INTRODUCTION

Just as there are different kinds of hard-news stories in journalism, there are
several types of feature stories. Often described as "soft news," a feature story
doesn't deliver the news directly, as a hard-news story does. A feature story,
while containing elements of news, aims to humanize, add color, educate,
entertain, and illuminate, says Media-Studies.ca. These stories often build on
news that was reported in a previous news cycle.

Examples of feature stories include news features, profiles, spot features,

trend stories, and live-ins. Feature stories can be found in the main news
section of a newspaper, especially if they profile a person or group currently
in the news. But they are also likely to be found in sections farther back in the
paper—in lifestyles, entertainment, sports, or business sections. They also can
be found in other news formats, such as radio, television, and the Internet.

News feature

The news feature is just what the name implies: a feature article that
focuses on a topic in the news. News features are often published in the
main news, or "A" section, or the local news, or "B" section, of a paper.
These stories focus on hard-news topics but aren't deadline stories. They
bring a softer writing style to hard news. These articles often are people
stories, focusing on individuals behind the news, and they often seek to
humanize a set of statistics.

A news feature could claim, for example, that a community is experiencing

a methamphetamine epidemic. It would begin by citing facts such as arrest
statistics from local, state, or federal authorities or treatment numbers from
area hospitals and drug counselors. Then it might include quotes and
information from people involved in different aspects of the story, such as
police, emergency room doctors, drug counselors, and meth addicts.

This kind of feature story focuses not on a single crime, drug-induced

death, or meth-related arrest; instead, it briefly tells the story of one or
more of the above-mentioned characters, such as recovering meth addicts.
The news feature seeks to put a human face on a crime statistic to bring the
story to life for readers and inform them of potential problems with the
issue.

II. DISCUSSION

Different Topic for Features stories

Models:

A. Personality/ Character Sketch

Personality/ Character Sketch s 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.
For example, 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.

Personality aims 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.

B. Adventure and 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.

C. Description

This type does not use many of the fiction writer's devices, since its
purpose is to inform more than to entertain. It may be very closely related
to the so called “New Journalism”. Facts for this type are usually obtained
from interviews, library research and personal observation.
D. Narrative

A narrative is a story that has a beginning, middle and end. It engages the
reader’s mind and heart. It shows actors moving across its stage, revealing
their characters through their actions and their speech. At its heart, a
narrative contains a mystery or a question—something that compels the
reader to keep reading and find out what happens. Newspaper narratives
are also entirely true and factual in every detail.

E. Backgrounder

A backgrounder provides historical or explanatory information about a

person, institution or situation. It is most useful for contextualizing a
breaking news story, and is usually written as a sidebar.

For example, backgrounders related to the 1996 TWA Flight 800 plane
crash in New York include stories on 1) all other plane crashes to date, 2)
all other terrorist bombings of planes, 3) the safety record and/or
construction of the particular aircraft, 4) challenges of flight crews.
Backgrounders on presidential races include: 1) biographical data of the
candidate, 2) political history of the candidate, 3) voting record in House,
Senate, state legislature or whatever, 4) how money influences politics, 5)
the biggest private-sector spenders in political campaigns.

Backgrounders related to the main news of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attack were in the thousands if we include all the local stories around the
country. They included the identities of the hijackers, the identity of Osam
bin Laden, the Muslim religion, the history of the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, a possible scenario of what happened on the plane that crashed
in Pennsylvania, the impact of cell phones in America. And that’s just the
beginning.

The challenge with backgrounders is to make them engaging. Poorly

written backgrounders read like high school book reports. Well written
backgrounders read like any other good story in a magazine or newspaper.
The keys are to find the overall theme (nut paragraph) and examples. Use
people and mini-stories to rely the information. Intersperse raw data,
statistics and numbers with people and anecdotes.

F. Developmental Feature Stories

Stories that deal with the development happening in the community.

Things such as projects that will help for certain developments might
catch the interest of some readers.
 G. How to do and What to do article

How-to articles are instructional content where interested readers can view
a step-by-step guide on how to do something such as how to change a car
tire, create a website, or swaddle a baby. A good article contains a list of
steps fleshing out each phase of the process until completion. Whether
you’re an experienced article writer or a casual blogger, anyone with a
basic knowledge of a subject and a few reliable sources can write a how-to
article.

H. Human Interest Feature

A Human Interest Story is a type of news story that focuses on a person,

group of people, and/or culture in an emotional manner. The goal is to
create empathy between the audience and the subject matter, often with
the intent to garner sympathy and/or awareness in the process.
There are a couple forms a human interest story may take. The most
common is the "story behind the story" approach, which takes a fairly
pivotal moment in history and focuses on one or more of the background
people. For example, a story about a woman whose husband was in the
World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 would be a human interest
story. Another approach is to find somebody with an interesting but
otherwise historically unimportant story and do an exposé on them.

III. REFERENCES
https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/writingfabulousfeatures/chapter/types-
of-features/
https://academic.udayton.edu/cmm330/Topics/9_Lectures&Guides/
StoryTypes.htm#Backgrounder
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-great-how-to-article