Chapter 14 - Featuring writing and Kell's say

1. The story related to famous Australians and their childhood homes, which brought back their memories of growing up in that place.
Link

The introduction says: Some grew up in the burbs, some in the bush. When Mike Safe asked well-known Australians about their childhood homes, the memories came flooding back.

Conley and Lamble describe a justifier as a story's reason, or justification, for being published.

This particular story didn't really have any specific reason for publication, in my opinion. It was definitely interesting to read, but news values such as timeliness, impact, prominence, currency or conflict were not evident.

The writing style struck me as a very puff piece of writing.

Liz Ellis was the first Australian interviewed. Of the six paragraphs the story on Ellis, four paragraphs were complete quotes.

However the following stories contained less "puffery".

All articles were interesting to read, which justifies why the news value of human interest is certainly relevant. Proximity, to a small extent, would be evident because it looks at famous Australians.

A quote was used as the very last sentence of the whole published story. It doesn't really have any relevance to the introduction, only that it does illustrate a childhood memory.

However have a more relevant closer would have been a relevant ending.

2. I think it depends on the feature story being published.

In defence of newspapers, I think they already publish sufficient feature stories through the lift-out magazines, particularly in the Sunday papers.

In regards to promoting good writing to increase newspaper sales, or whether people are too busy or too interested in the hard news to care, I think it comes down to time.

Sometimes the hard news can be quite depressing, so I believe reading an uplifting feature story makes for a good change. But often the features stories are quite lengthy. Unless a reader has a particular interest in the story, they won't buy the paper or magazine.

As mentioned on page 316 of the text book "the best feature writing requires a creativity and way with words that cannot be taught". This quote sparked my interest and I will discuss this as part of Kell's say at the end of this blog.

But I do think newspapers should promote their feature stories because as I mentioned earlier, it makes for a nice change from death, war, drugs and crime.

3. From a profit perspective, I think it's important to publish stories the readers will read. Afterall, if they aren't interested in the story, they won't buy the publication.

In addition, I think the soft entertainment news originating from Hollywood is what readers want to read about!

But is that a result of not publishing as many Australian stories?

Whatever the reason, it would be a great idea to limit the Hollywood stories for Australian writers and subjects.

Not only does it provide exposure for the story-teller, it also provides exposure for the journalist writing the story. Perhaps then, Australian feature stories can become prominent in the Hollywood market!

So, of course market forces dominate what is published, but if there was the opportunity to limit the imported stories for Australian writers and subjects, I would definitely be a supporter.

4. Feature writing is definitely an interest of mine.

I really enjoy finding out more about people and their background and current situation, especially those people who have overcome adversity and have made a life for themselves.

This Link
explains what feature writing is and I was interested to read "If you ask the question "how and why" things happen, then you probably like reading feature stories in newspapers and magazines." The quote certainly justifies my own reason for being interested in feature writing

To be able to write about and tell their story to the wider, I feel, would just raise some awareness of much some people really are struggling/have struggled in life.

Writing medical feature stories is also of interest to me. Given I would ideally like to work for the Cancer Council in the future, I would love to write feature stories about new breakthroughs or possible medications etc.

Unlike most traditional news stories, these kinds of issues are about hope, change and awareness. For me to be able to pass that information onto readers would be an unbelievable experience.

5. In my opinion, a columnist publishes stories of opinion more than fact. Feature stories are more often than not, about another person or issue.

Columnists tend to be more of a "my say" type of journalism.

Feature writing are regarded by many as a newspaper's glamour journalists (pg.316). Feature writers have more autonomy about what they can write and how they write it.

Feature writing requires a great deal of creativity to construct a story.

However another difference is editing. A columnist may be less distressed if the story they compiled in less than an hour is edited. On the other hand, a feature writer might be more stressed if their article is edited. This could particularly be the case if the writer has spent days or weeks on a story only to have it edited.

Conley and Lamble also note criticism as a difference between reporters and a feature writer (pg.317).

Ultimately, the biggest difference between a columnist and a feature writer is a columnist is about opinions. Feature writers deal more in creativity.

KELL'S SAY
"the best feature writing requires a creativity and a way with words that cannot be taught"

What a great quote!

Feature writing is a lot about creativity which cannot be taught. However I do believe writing structure can be taught.

Before studying journalism at Uni, I had absolutely no knowledge how the industry of journalism worked. The only pyramid I had any knowledge about was the one in Egypt!

There are also many rules and ethics in regards to journalism. These too can be taught, obviously people are not going to be born with the knowledge of journalism ethics and rules!

Feature writing requires creativity, but I think it also requires a genuine love of writing. Perhaps one comes with the other. Either way, creativity is something you are born with or without.

So ultimately I think the "how to do journalism" can definitely be taught, but I agree that creativity is something which can't be taught.