Beyond the News

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Beyond the News

• News Reporting and Writing Workshop
• Journalism and Media Studies Centre
• The University of Hong Kong
• Gene Mustain

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Beyond the News

• Features
• News Features
• Profiles

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Beyond the News

• Features Stories written to inform, entertain or
  to engage the reader on some other emotional
  level. The writer uses people or events related
  to a topic to tell a story. News Features The
  writer uses people or events to suggest the
  emotional side of a current news story.

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Beyond the News

• Profiles -- Similar to features, but different
  enough to be their own category. They are written
  to introduce the reader to someone worth knowing,
  either for their talent, position or power, or
  just because they are interesting or unusual in
  some way.

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Beyond the News

• Features, news features and profiles usually
  contain more elements than a routine news story
• Feature on Queen Mary.
• News feature on where SARS ward at Queen Mary.
• Profile of a SARS doctor.

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Beyond the News

• Features, news features and profiles usually have
  a distinct mood and style.
• Mood and style Words, expressions and an
  approach that convey emotion and attitude.

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Beyond the News

• The mood and style of features, news features and
  profiles should reflect and complement the main
  subject matter. You could write lightly about a
  school groups tour of Ocean Park but you would
  want to be sober and dignified if you were
  writing about a doctor fighting SARS.

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Beyond the News

• In features, news features and profiles, the
  writer becomes more important to the story.
• The writer, not the event, determines what to put
  in and what to leave out.

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Beyond the News

• Before you start writing
• Do all of your homework.
• Seek out multiple sources.
• Get organized.
• Know what you want to say.

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Beyond the News

• Find a theme.
• Write a beginning that invites the audience in.
• Keep the story easy to follow.
• Provide enough background to help readers
  understand.
• Use transitions.

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Beyond the News

• Use only strong quotes. Paraphrase boring
  language.
• When you can, show rather than tell. Use
  descriptive scenes, action and dialogue (as
  opposed to only quotes).
• Include your own observations and comments by
  others.

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Beyond the News

• As in newswriting, many different structures
  exist for feature stories.
• They are not as rigid or as recognizable as they
  are in newswriting, but they are useful ways to
  organize the large amount of material upon which
  the best features, news-features and profiles
  usually rely.

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Beyond the News

• One simple way to think of this group of stories
  is the way writers have thought of them since
  there have been stories.
• They have beginnings, middles and ends.

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Beyond the News

• The beginning describes an incident, ancedote for
  example from the person, event or idea you are
  writing about.
• The middle contains more incidents, anecdotes and
  examples. It contains the necessary background
  and context it contains quotes, details,
  description.

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Beyond the News

• The ending of the story may be one paragraph or
  several. It may summarize the main idea, or refer
  to it obliquely. It may provide an emotional
  climax. It may be a comment from the writer -- or
  a quote from someone.

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Beyond the News

• The main idea, or theme, of the story is threaded
  throughout the story. Think of the theme as a
  river -- it can take all sorts of twists and
  turns, but it stays within its banks.

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Beyond the News

• Over the years, a version of the three-part
  structure has become popular in newspapers and
  magazines. This structure, like our newswriting
  structure, has four steps. But the first two of
  them can really be thought as the beginning of
  the story.

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Four-Step Structure

• Step No. 1
• Set the scene -- start story with scene or idea
  that introduces reader to the main person or idea
  of the story. This could be one paragraph or
  several.

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Four-Step Structure

• Step No. 2
• Compose a nut section -- one or more
  paragraphs that summarize or outline the storys
  main theme, subthemes and ideas. This is where
  you sell the story to the reader.

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Four-Step Structure

• Step No. 3
• Discuss the themes and ideas promised in the nut
  section. This is where you lay out most of your
  reporting -- your scenes, quotes, descriptions --
  and deliver what you have promised.

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Four-Step Structure

• Step No. 4
• The kicker -- funny, dramatic, or colorful
  sentence or set of sentences or paragraphs that
  make the reader glad they finished the story.