CHAPTER 3

WRITING THE FEATURE, SPEECH, ^SPORTS AND ACCIDENT STORIES

In Chapter 2, the fundamental aspects of newswriting were covered. Once you master the basics of newswriting, then, and only then, are you ready to wrestle with the more complex news stories. This chapter will help you develop the skills and learn the knowledge necessary to write effective feature, speech, sports and accident stories.

THE FEATURE STORY

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: Identify the characteristics and structure of a feature story and the techniques used in producing a personality feature.

Writing straight news strengthens the writer's powers of observation and builds his skill in using the English language. It impresses on the writer the necessity for ruthless editing until the story is specific, clear and vital.

Conversely, feature writing is not an exact science. Much depends on the skill, imagination and creativeness of the writer.

What is a feature story? It has been called the story that "has to be told." It has also been called simply "human interest." Interest in human beings, and in events because they concern people in situations that might confront anyone else, is called human interest. When a shipboard explosion takes the lives of several crew members and prompts the gallant efforts of other crew members to prevent the loss of the entire crew, the human interest, or appeal, may be of a sympathetic nature. A man with a broken nose might also evoke a sympathetic response. However, if the injury occurred when he walked into a telephone pole while scrutinizing an attractive 1957 Chevrolet on the other side of the street, the appeal might be of a humorous nature.

Certain topics have human interest built in. And, although they may not possess any of the other elements of news value (timeliness, proximity, prominence or consequence), they still have personal appeal. Human interest may fall into many categories, including those in the following list:

Current topics

The unusual and the extraordinary

Mysteries and catastrophes

Romance and sex

Adventure and exploits

Competitive contests

Child, teen-age and adult life

Animal life

Recreations and hobbies

Business, professional and home activities

Social welfare

Success and happiness

In any case, a good human interest story is built around the premise that the reader can easily identify with the subject or event. It involves a fellow human being and a situation that could happen to, or involve, the reader.

Human interest stories not only entertain, but are often informative in that they contain all the elements of a news story. However, the human interest aspect of the story outweighs its value as a straight news story.

Major news events seem to tell themselves. The straight newswriter can set down all the facts, arrange them together with appropriate words and have an adequate news story. The feature, however, must be brought to public attention by the creative writer. As a Navy JO, your job is to recognize the human interest possibilities of stories and turn a drab yarn into a bright one without exaggeration or distortion

CONTENT

The feature story is similar to basic newswriting in that it has a news peg. What sets it far apart, however, is that it emphasizes something new, odd or unusual.

Both of these attributes are covered in the following text.

News Peg

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was an event with intense, hard news value. Confrontation between the two strongest world powers could have been the lead paragraph on the story of World War III. Events in this confrontation made the news wires sing for many weeks.

When the USS Norfolk intercepted a Russian ship removing missiles from Cuba, the New York Times News Service covered it in a lead that read as follows:

The captain of a Soviet freighter reluctantly stripped the tarpaulin covers from eight medium-range missiles on the deck of his freighter Friday for photographing by a United States destroyer.

Using this news event as a peg, and realizing that he could not compete with news-service speed in making releases, the PAO aboard Norfolk released a feature with a different slant:

Much of the old-style drama and military dash of the international crisis is a thing of the past. The thrill of "Victory at Sea" is no longer as graphic in its modern context as that famous World War II documentary movie.

Today's coverage of events that shape the lives of nations comes, often as not, from the centers of government and military command posts. For the chess game of world events is no longer played in the smoke of battle, but in planning rooms where statesmen, military personnel and civilians in government call the plays thousands of miles from the scene of the move. ...

New, Odd or Unusual

The event and object sources are rich in feature prospects. Here, the imagination and curiosity of the writer are put to the test. Most hobbies are quite commonplace, yet an ordinary hobby can provide good story material if there is an element of the new, the odd or the unusual connected with it.

In conjunction with hobbies and collections, museums supply fine material for stories. Here the ideas usually come from historical circumstances surrounding the objects of their development. Browse

through a museum and ask yourself these questions: Why is this object on display? What significance does it have? What historical event is connected with it?

Stories concerning historical events must be especially well-written and interesting because people do not like to read about events presented in textbook style. However, they are interested in what one person or group did in a particular historical event.

These are a few common areas that produce ideas for articles. There are many others. The point is, the ideas are there and you must open your eyes to them.