Feature Writing and Reporting. Jennifer Brannock Cox
But so far, UNC officials are quiet on the question of what happens next with Silent Sam. One Board of Governors member said the statue would be reinstalled within 90 days.
Readers are reminded that this story still has a lot of unanswered questions. The subsequent sources echo the chaos. They have strong opinions, but it is clear they are still trying to process what has happened and what the future holds.
Barbara Rimer, the dean of UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, sent a letter to the Gillings school Tuesday. In it, she suggested a monument to a person who promoted peace, equity or prevention, instead of a return to Silent Sam, who, she said, “spoke loudly.”
“It’s no wonder that, as other states sought to move beyond the past by removing statues, our inability to do so caused wounds to fester until the pain became unbearable,” Rimer said. “It is not surprising that it happened Monday night. It is only surprising that it did not happen sooner. One hundred and five years of simmering were bound to lead to a boil.”
McInerney, the UNC alumnus, poet and a Cambridge University graduate student, said he found Monday’s outcome completely comprehensible.
“As the first public university, one embedded in the American South, this is not a thing that’s going away,” he said.
“The conversation is heating up, and we need to lean in to that conversation and continue to do this hard work around understanding our past.”
When reporting these types of historical features, reporters need to answer the following questions:
How did this item/place/group come to exist?
Why was it needed at the time?
How has it or the need for it changed over the years?
How do people feel about it now?
What is its future?
Historical features can also be related to a specific time peg. Reporters often do stories to mark significant anniversaries and events, usually at 5- or 10-year intervals. However, some events are significant enough to merit stories every year. For instance, publications throughout the U.S. publish historical features every Sept. 11 in memory of those killed in the deadly terrorism attacks in 2001.
Not all historical features are based on tragedies. Think about influential organizations, buildings, people or events in your community. How long have they been around, and how long has it been since someone really looked into their formation and purpose?
Time pegs tied to holidays and awareness months are also good fodder for historical features. Think about a yearlong calendar. What time pegs exist, and what kinds of stories could you come up with for each month?
Explainer Features
Feature stories explaining how to accomplish a certain task or goal tend to be popular with readers because of their relatability. How-to stories, ranging from practical time peg articles to more arbitrary evergreen stories, usually sprout from a question that might be on the minds of people in the community. Practical explainers can provide readers with information they need at a particular time. For example, azcentral.com published “How to Register to Vote in Arizona’s November Election—Don’t Get Left Out” one month before the state’s voter registration deadline. As college students prepared to move back into their residence halls, Buzzfeed published the article “How To: Showcase Your Space,” providing tips for decorating dorm rooms (see Figure 2.7).
Figure 2.7 Using Time Pegs for Story Ideas
Evergreen articles tend to be popular among magazines and address needs specific to their audience. Forbes magazine gears stories toward its readers in the finance and business industries, routinely publishing how-to features examining workplace and consumer questions, such as “How to Boost Your Value in the Workplace” and “How to Help Your Children Minimize Future Student Loan Debt.” Conversely, Teen Vogue, which covers issues important to middle school, high school and early college students, publishes explanatory pieces, including “How to Deal With Seeing Your Ex at School” and “How to Fix Bad Box Hair Dye.”
Explainers can also be used to provide background information or clarification on a topic. These too can be either time sensitive or arbitrary, as illustrated by The New York Times. When a heat wave hit New York City, the newspaper published “Why We All Need to Drink More During Hot Weather Exercise.” One month earlier, “Women Outlive Men: Why Do They Retire Earlier?” explained the issue in an evergreen story.
Writing and reporting an explainer feature is not as simple as voicing your own thoughts on a topic. Successful explainers should be relatable, informative and interesting so readers will want to share them. Here are some tips:
Choose something important to readers, not just to you.NO: Top 10 things that bother me about school.YES: Top 10 student complaints about school.
Be appealing by narrowing your topic.NO: Ways to get in shape for summer.YES: Fun ways to get in shape for summer.
Specify your target audience when possible.NO: Top 10 student hangouts.YES: Top 10 middle school student hangouts in downtown Charlotte.
Transforming explainers from soft news or opinion articles into more newsworthy pieces requires good feature reporting and writing skills. Be sure to get sources to explain their processes and reactions rather than inserting your own opinion. It is also a good idea to get a diverse array of sources. Interview experts who know a lot about the topic, as well as average citizens who might be trying something for the first time. When writing, use emotional quotes and paraphrase facts. Having your sources reflect on their experience with the topic through quotes and thoughtful paraphrasing will resonate more with readers than if the reporter simply tells them how the sources feel. For example:
NO: Pilates became a popular low-impact alternative to yoga for fitness fanatics in the 2000s.
“I dropped two pant sizes during the last year,” yoga enthusiast Mandy Smith said. “I do yoga about four times each week.”
YES: Pilates became a popular low-impact alternative to yoga for fitness fanatics in the 2000s.
Mandy Smith says she enjoys the combination of strength and stretching exercises associated with Pilates. Smith credits weekly classes with helping her drop two pant sizes last year.
“It’s such a wonderful way to relax and sweat at the same time,” she said. “You don’t feel like you’re wearing yourself out, but the results speak for themselves.”
To practice writing and reporting thorough explainers, consider a broad question you can ask people around you: What are your favorite things to do in your town/city? Talk with people on the street, and turn their responses into a news story.
Opinion Features
Opinion writing allows reporters to use first-person language and share their personal thoughts and experiences with readers. Because reporters are called upon to be unbiased, they need to be careful in choosing what topics they share their opinion about. For example, a politics reporter should not write a column praising the efforts of one political party over another, but she may write about why it is important to vote. A business reporter should not write an opinion piece advising people what stocks to buy or sell, but he may offer insight to readers on how to find a stockbroker and get started with trading.
While there is potential for ethical conflicts of interest in opinion writing, stories that make reporters seem “human” and relatable like these tend to attract readers. The New York Times learned this in 2006, when columnist Amy Sutherland wrote an article about her own marriage. “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage” relayed Sutherland’s use—on her husband—of