{"id":119,"date":"2026-03-30T15:42:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/?p=119"},"modified":"2026-09-11T12:03:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:03:52","slug":"lsj-10-lesson-10-more-about-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/2026\/03\/30\/lsj-10-lesson-10-more-about-features\/","title":{"rendered":"LSJ 10. Lesson 10 : More About Features"},"content":{"rendered":"

10. Lesson 10 : More About Features<\/h1>\n
\n

Progressing to in-depth features profiles; how to conduct successful face-to-face interviews. What is meant by ‘standfirsts’; using different features introductions to play up a strong news angle or maximise the story’s human interest. Exploring eyewitness and offbeat approaches.
\nAssessment tasks include:<\/strong><\/em>
\nSizing and positioning pictures
\nTackling a 600-800 word in-depth features profile<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

LESSON TEN<\/h1>\n

ORIGINAL CHAPTER LINK : LSJ COURSE : NEWS JOURNALISM LESSON 09 ORIGINAL DOCJN10<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

JOURNALISM AND NEWSWRITING
\nLESSON 10
\nMore About Features
\n\u00a9 LONDON SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
\n1
\nCHAPTER 10
\nMORE ABOUT FEATURES
\nProfiles. Interviewing techniques. Successful interviews. Features intros.
\nPROFILES
\nThere is an enormous amount of satisfaction to be gained from producing a wellwritten profile. Apart from providing the opportunity to meet new and interesting
\npeople from all walks of life, the writing process is a marvellous test of your
\nprofessional discipline.
\nFor a start, you are completely on your own. It is up to you to ask all the right
\nquestions, win the interviewee’s trust, respond to any unexpected titbits they throw
\ninto the conversation, spot new angles as they arise, organise the information you
\ngather in a logical way and craft the whole package into an entertaining, perceptive
\nfeature that people will want to read.
\nThe good news is that they usually involve a single, straightforward face-to-face
\ninterview. The bad news is that they are not as easy to do well as you might think. If
\nyou are too sycophantic in your writing, the finished piece will read like an advertising
\nfeature \u2013 and will probably be extremely boring. On the other hand, if you are too
\naggressive in your interviewing technique, the individual is likely to clam up and tell
\nyou as little as possible \u2013 presuming that they don’t lose their rag altogether and
\nthrow you out of the house or just walk away!
\nIt’s important to remember that your aim is to satisfy the reader \u2013 not necessarily to
\nwrite the sort of profile the interviewee wants you to write (or would write themselves
\nif they got the chance). Naturally, your feature should be an accurate portrayal of an
\nindividual. But people have some strange preconceptions about how they appear to
\nother people \u2013 or how they would like to appear.
\nHonesty is the important word here. If someone comes across in an interview as
\ncold, angry, bored or suspicious, then these are valid adjectives to use in your writeup. They may not be how the person you are speaking to wants to be perceived, but
\nif you tell the truth and use your words wisely, you are unlikely to get any negative
\nfeedback.
\nYour quest, remember, is to provide genuine insights. With that in mind, the ultimate
\ncompliment you could receive after publication is getting a phone call from your
\ninterviewee saying: “I enjoyed reading your piece but I was a little shocked when you
\ndescribed me as severe and preoccupied. That’s not how I see myself. But when I
\nspoke to my wife, she said it was absolutely spot-on. Well done.”
\nVirtually anyone can provide the basis of a fascinating profile if you can find a
\nsuitable angle. Celebrities are obvious targets, but prominent figures in the local
\ncommunity are of interest to the regional press and trade magazines are always on
\nthe look-out for high achievers and good human interest stories.
\n2
\nPeople with unusual lifestyles or tales to tell appeal to the magazine market and
\neven total ‘unknowns’ may be suitable profile material if you can find the right ‘peg’.
\nYour approach and technique will vary slightly according to how well known your
\nchosen interviewee is. The rich and famous can be more difficult to track down, are
\npestered all the time for interviews and may be less forthcoming when you actually
\nget to meet them. They are much more experienced at answering questions without
\ngiving away anything they don’t want to and your readers already know what they
\nlook like and quite a lot of background about them. So your challenge is to unearth
\nnew material, wherever possible. Minor celebrities or ‘ordinary’ individuals are easier
\nto track down, may be more responsive to your questions and may not be known at
\nall to your readers.
\nDepending on the approach of your own publication, coverage may be restricted to a
\npredictable cross-section of celebrity profiles, with a strong emphasis on soap stars
\nand TV presenters. Other types of ‘celebrity’ may also feature \u2013 from poets to
\npoliticians, sporting personalities, pop stars, authors, stand-up comics, business
\npeople and internet celebrities.
\nRegional papers may have a broader approach: as long as there is a strong local
\nangle, they might be interested in the work of an inspirational teacher or a tireless
\ncharity fundraiser, the new custodians of a clifftop castle, a pensioner who once
\ncompeted in the Olympics, a cyclist who has just completed a round-the-world trip for
\ncharity \u2013 even a murderer finally released on parole after 20 years behind bars.
\nThere are basically three categories of interviewee for feature profiles:
\n\u2022 ordinary people who are unknown to readers
\n\u2022 experts and specialists
\n\u2022 celebrities
\nTo justify a profile piece, those in the first two categories will normally already be in
\nthe news for some reason, be involved in an interesting project, have an intriguing
\nhobby or have achieved something extraordinary. This needn’t be dramatic, but it
\nshould be interesting \u2013 and relevant to your publication.
\nINTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES
\nLesson Nine looked at the importance of quotes in many different types of published
\nfeatures. In virtually every case, interviews have played a crucial role in shaping the
\nfinished article \u2013 not simply as a means of getting information from people, but to
\nhelp inject the writing with life and pace.
\nInterviews allow us to obtain facts, opinions and anecdotes from people. Once we
\nhave collected the information, we will inevitably edit and paraphrase much of what
\nwe have gathered, so that our piece has both clarity and brevity.
\n3
\nBut there will also be occasions when we want to repeat things our interviewee has
\nsaid word for word, because carefully selected quotes add:
\n\u2022 vitality
\n\u2022 topicality
\n\u2022 authenticity
\n\u2022 clarity
\nThey also help to vary the rhythm of an article, put facts and background information
\ninto context, reveal the personality of the speaker, increase the ‘human interest’
\nelement of the feature and \u2013 particularly importantly from your point of view as
\nwriter\u2013 make the finished work unique.
\nYou will have gathered that the task of producing an article for publication \u2013 and
\ntherefore the art of journalism itself \u2013 relies on a combination of skills which are of
\nmore or less equal importance:
\n\u2022 researching
\n\u2022 interviewing
\n\u2022 writing
\nDespite this, interviewing techniques do not feature prominently in many formal
\ntraining courses for newspaper journalists (although for obvious reasons, more
\nattention is paid to the subject in the training of those starting careers in radio and
\ntelevision, where their interviewing skills are on public display).
\nThis is a major oversight, because while ‘essentials’ like law, public affairs and
\nshorthand are important, we should not assume that all writers find it a ‘natural’
\nprocess to interview people. Some can unintentionally antagonise, irritate or
\npatronise those they interview; others may feel shy, awkward, intimidated or tonguetied and, as a result, will almost certainly miss out on the opportunity to obtain the
\nvital information that is needed for the finished story.
\nMuch has been written about interviewing techniques, but like so many other
\n‘interactive’ skills \u2013 teaching and public speaking, for example \u2013 practice is likely to
\nbe more beneficial than book learning, especially if you have the courage to look
\nback after an interview and analyse what worked and what didn’t. An earlier lesson
\nconcluded that a good journalist should be accurate, reliable, persistent, inquisitive,
\nsociable, enthusiastic, dogged, patient, confident, sympathetic, empathetic, curious
\nand sensitive. Nowhere are such qualities of more importance than when you are
\nconducting an interview.
\nSometimes this is self-evident: if you look and sound bored, you can hardly blame
\nthe interviewee for feeling aggrieved and showing you the door.
\nBut we are not always good at recognising how we present ourselves to other
\npeople. Some otherwise professional journalists may not realise that they appear
\nintimidating and aggressive, for example \u2013 yet standing very close to your subject
\n4
\nwhile loudly flicking over pages of your shorthand notebook under their nose and
\nreeling off blunt, probing questions will certainly convey this impression.
\nA talented young reporter might initially be completely unaware that their high level of
\nconcentration may lend their face a ‘clinical’ expression, giving people the (false)
\nimpression they are cold, bored or uncaring. Efficiency is a valuable asset, but if it
\ncomes across to interviewees as a lack of empathy, there will be times when they will
\nundoubtedly lose out on stories because people feel discouraged from ‘opening up’.
\nThe same applies to journalists who are patronising or seem arrogant, as well as
\nthose who ask an endless stream of blindingly obvious questions without showing
\nany real interest in the answers. People find this intensely irritating and on occasions
\ndownright insulting. It’s not just trainees who can make a mess of interviews, either.
\nSome of Fleet Street’s finest have driven interviewees to distraction with banal,
\nignorant, arrogant, intrusive or unnecessarily vicious questions.
\nWho calls the shots? Never assume you have a divine right to obtain an interview \u2013
\nsome people are bound to be wary about baring their souls and others may refuse
\npoint-blank because they treasure their privacy. When you arrange an interview, you
\nshould be honest about the purpose behind it. In normal circumstances, there is
\nnothing to be gained from attempting to mislead the person you wish to speak to \u2013
\nand you may leave yourself open to accusations of professional misconduct in the
\nprocess.
\nAt the same time, as a professional journalist you should not shrink from asking
\ndifficult questions about potentially sensitive issues. Having done your background
\nresearch and won the interviewee’s trust, you have to choose the best moment to
\nbroach a ‘difficult’ area.
\nHandled delicately, such questions needn’t offend \u2013 and nor should you take
\numbrage if you are met with a flat refusal to talk. But if the question is a valid one \u2013
\nand if you can justifiably say it is one your readers are bound to be asking \u2013 then you
\nshouldn’t shirk the issue. More often than not, you will find yourselves surprised by
\npeople’s frankness, especially if you are writing for a reputable publication which is
\nnot into sensationalism.
\nOf course, if you intend to tackle a shady landlord about poor treatment of tenants, or
\nother equally contentious interviews, you will need to be more forceful, confident and
\npersuasive \u2013 offering the chance to put their side of the story, for example, or answer
\nin print some of the allegations that have been made. But investigative features are a
\nspecialist field and can be a legal minefield for the inexperienced.
\nSUCCESSFUL INTERVIEWS
\nThe following pointers should help to ensure you adopt an efficient, professional
\napproach to every interview you conduct:
\n\u2022 Research the subject thoroughly in advance
\nThis will automatically give you confidence and create a favourable impression with
\nthe interviewee. It will also equip you to ask more probing or stimulating questions,
\n5
\nand discover which subjects are fair game or off limits. This would require where
\npossible, checking the interviewee\u2019s individual website, social media activity and any
\nprevious interviews they may have done with other publications or TV channels.
\n\u2022 Don’t forget your ‘angle’
\nThink through what you need to know and plan your questions accordingly. Structure
\nthe interview to ensure you get all the relevant information you need. Be flexible
\nenough to explore new and intriguing avenues of conversation, but don’t get
\nsidetracked against your will and don’t simply ask questions at random \u2013 if you leave
\nyawning gaps, you won’t be able to fill them afterwards.
\n\u2022 Be professional and businesslike, friendly, courteous and polite
\nYou want to win the trust of the person you are speaking to. It’s a bonus if you
\nactually like each other, but you shouldn’t rely on hitting it off instantly with everyone
\nyou meet (and if you do, be wary of displaying bias in your writing). It’s more
\nimportant that you feel able to speak to anyone comfortably, regardless of class,
\ncreed or profession and establish sufficient rapport to be able to conduct a relaxed
\ninterview in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
\n\u2022 Choose your venue
\nThe best place for an interview is the subject’s own home. Apart from making them
\nfeel more at ease, it is more likely to give you an accurate picture of their personality.
\nIn some cases, their office or work environment may be more appropriate,
\nparticularly if it is likely to provide you with background colour. Try to avoid neutral,
\nanonymous settings like hotels and restaurants that will deprive you of visual cues
\nand anywhere where there is too much background noise or too many interruptions.
\nAvoid meeting over lunch \u2013 it’s difficult to talk (or write) while you’re eating. Cars are
\na good place too in terms of soundproofing.
\n\u2022 Use a reliable recording device if you don\u2019t have shorthand
\nMany journalists use their smartphones to record an interview but this can be an
\nissue if your interview is done on the phone. There are apps that can be downloaded
\nto enable you to record phone interviews and you may need to do your own research
\non this to find the best one for your needs. If you are doing the interview via videocalling software, it should be relatively easy to record.
\n\u2022 Take charge from the start
\nIt’s vital you control the shape and direction of the interview if you are going to come
\naway with all the information you need. If you are confident, professional, properly
\nprepared and clearly focused, you stand every chance of success.
\n\u2022 Use your eyes
\nIt’s not just what the interviewee says that’s important, but how they say it. Watch
\ntheir body language, how they’re dressed, how they interact with other people (from
\nthe waiter to their wife). If they’re on home turf, the surroundings may be relevant too
\n\u2013 both on a grand scale (if you’re sitting in the conservatory of their \u00a35m mansion)
\n6
\nand the small (the books on their shelves, pictures on their mantelpiece, etc). What
\ndoes the room say about their personality?
\n\u2022 Don’t get drawn into a debate
\nA little feedback and small-talk can help put your interviewee at ease. But don’t talk
\ntoo much \u2013 this isn’t a pub discussion and your views aren’t relevant or important.
\nApart from which, you don’t want to waste valuable time when you could be asking
\nquestions.
\n\u2022 Ask open-ended questions
\nThe way you phrase questions can encourage your interviewee to open up and
\nexplain something in their own words and in some detail. Don’t shut them up by
\nasking questions which beg yes\/no answers.
\n\u2022 Don’t forget vital details
\nThere will come a point when it is clear you have all the information you need and it’s
\ntime to wind the interview up. As you do so, run through a quick mental checklist to
\nmake sure you have everything you need. Most importantly \u2013 especially in short
\nphone interviews \u2013 do you know how to spell their name, and do you know their
\nofficial title? How old are they? Where do they live?
\n\u2022 Don’t agree to show the interviewee the finished article
\nIt’s unprofessional and it is bound to cause problems because, given the chance, few
\npeople can resist tinkering with an article about themselves. Simply tell them it’s not
\nthe editorial policy of whichever publication you are writing for \u2013 unless, of course,
\nyour editor has made some special arrangement to the contrary.
\n\u2022 Don’t pay for an interview
\nIt’s unlikely you will be asked, but there may be celebrities \u2013 a disgraced MP, for
\nexample, or certain soccer stars \u2013 who think they should be paid for interviews.
\nUnless your editor tells you to the contrary, tell them your publication doesn’t believe
\nin chequebook journalism.
\nFEATURES INTROS
\nYou’ve done the research, got all the facts at your fingertips and carried out the
\ninterviews \u2013 but how do you actually start writing your feature? Unlike news stories,
\nthere’s no straightforward formula you can follow to write the ‘perfect’ intro \u2013 and
\nsometimes a number of approaches will produce equally valid results.
\nHopefully, a few pointers will help focus your thoughts and give you a fighting chance
\nof coming up with an intro that works. But don’t spend too much time crafting your
\nintro when you first start writing your feature. (It can cause writer’s block and prevent
\nyou from getting the rest of the article down on paper).
\n7
\nGo with the best line you can think of and return to it when the feature’s virtually
\nfinished. It’s not uncommon for a better intro to strike you later on, once you start
\norganising your thoughts and have got into your ‘flow’ of the article.
\nStandfirsts
\nBy definition, news stories tend to be telling you about something which has just
\nhappened that you don’t already know about. News intros are brief and to the point,
\ntelling you who, what, when, where, why, how. The ‘when’ is particularly important.
\nAs we have seen, most news stories include the words ‘last night’, ‘today’ or ‘this
\nweek’ \u2013 topicality being vital.
\nFeatures should be topical, too but they aren’t quite as breathless as news stories.
\nGenerally they develop or enlarge upon a current or breaking story and will often
\npresume you already know a little bit about the subject matter.
\nThe standfirst is the device used to introduce a feature and put it in context and you
\nmay find it very useful to develop a knack for writing these. Often, it will bear a strong
\nresemblance to the original news intro \u2013 and it will also usually include a ‘today’ line,
\nto establish the feature’s topicality. Do bear in mind though that the standfirst and
\nintro are separate entities and you will need to re-introduce your subject in full in the
\nmain piece, even though you have mentioned them in the standfirst.
\nFor example, a news story might read:
\nDorningham councillors voted last night to introduce sweeping new
\nparking controls on the outskirts of the city.
\nThe news story would go on to explain what measures are to be taken, what
\ncouncillors said at the meeting and how people have reacted to the decision. The
\nfeatures editor might suggest that someone writes a topical news feature on the
\nsubject for the following night’s paper. Part of the standfirst for the feature could be
\nalmost identical to the original news intro:
\nDorningham councillors have voted to introduce sweeping new parking
\ncontrols on the outskirts of the city. David Crisp finds out how commuters
\nand local residents are reacting to the initiative
\nIn practice, the standfirst is likely to be slightly reworded to achieve maximum impact
\nand reflect any new developments emerging from the feature writer’s research. It is,
\nafter all, something of a sales pitch, a tool that is being used to ‘sell’ the feature by
\nhinting at what interesting new information it contains.
\nSweeping new parking controls planned for the outskirts of Dorningham
\nwill only make congestion worse, say local residents. David Crisp reports
\non the fierce backlash to this week’s controversial council decision
\n8
\nNote how the standfirst:
\n\u2022 refers to the original news story
\n\u2022 ‘sells’ the feature
\n\u2022 is topical (i.e. today, this week)
\n\u2022 includes the writer’s byline
\n\u2022 promises to develop an issue, put it in context, introduce a new twist or
\n\u2022 explore a different angle
\nThe standfirst establishes with the readers that the news story has already been
\npublished, giving the feature writer free rein to adopt a very different approach.
\nNews angles
\nDoes the feature have a strong news angle? If it does, your approach will be similar
\nto that used in a news story in that you will need to highlight the most significant new
\ndevelopment right at the start of the story.
\nIf you have uncovered totally new material, you may have to write both a news story
\nand a feature, to be published in the same edition of the paper. In this case, your
\nnews story follows the traditional formula, distilling the key facts and incorporating
\nconcise, relevant quotes. The feature is likely to ‘develop’ the news story \u2013
\nexamining the broader significance of the problem, or exploring an issue in greater
\ndepth. The standfirst on the feature ties in the two articles. The stronger the news
\nangle, the simpler and more straightforward your intro can be.
\nWho’s affected?
\nIf you are writing about an issue that affects a large number of readers, you will
\nprobably focus on the problem in global terms. Conversely, many features will
\nspecifically choose to focus on the local implications of a national story. If it affects
\nonly a specific individual or family, your intro will make the most of this human angle
\nand be much more specific. If a local man publishes a book about Antarctica\u2019s
\nmelting glaciers, it’s quite likely that the news story might effectively say just that in
\nthe intro. A feature focusing in greater depth on the subject, however, might choose
\nto reflect the global implications reflected by the book’s content:
\nThe world’s last and most spectacular wilderness is under threat \u2013 and the
\nway we treat its vast frozen wastes could dictate whether we survive or
\nself-destruct. A dramatic ultimatum, but a very real one according to
\nDorningham author Scott Ridley, whose latest book about Antarctica\u2019s
\nmelting glaciers is published this week.
\nOn the other hand, a survey highlighting the growing number of youngsters sleeping
\nrough on London’s streets is unlikely to hit the headlines in Dorningham unless a
\nlocal angle can be identified:
\n9
\nIn the twilight world of London’s West End, a steadily-growing army of
\nDorningham youngsters are sleeping rough and fighting to find work.
\nThe extent of the problem was highlighted this week when anxious
\nparents inundated local police with calls after hearing of the gruesome
\ndiscovery of human remains in a North London sewer.
\nHuman interest
\nA desire to capture the full drama of a specific incident may prompt you to focus on
\nthe individuals involved:
\nFarmer Andrew Cunningham could only look on in horror as an express
\ntrain smashed into his vehicle at over 50mph on a farm crossing outside
\nDorningham.
\nEyewitness approach
\nFor news features with a strong visual element, you may prefer the ‘eyewitness’
\napproach as the best way of humanising the issue:
\nThere were hundreds of people thronging the streets of Dorningham.
\nSome had just left their homes for half an hour while others had taken an
\nunofficial break from work; but it was all worthwhile when the town was
\nsuddenly plunged into darkness and the magical solar eclipse appeared.
\nThe eyewitness approach is particularly useful where there is no strong news line,
\nbut there is a reasonable amount of ‘colour’ that you have researched at first-hand:
\nThe boat scudding at high speed across the waves looks for all the world
\nlike any other small pleasure craft.
\nOnly the distinctive epaulettes of the crew betray the fact that these are
\ncustoms men testing out their new weapon in the battle against people
\nsmugglers.
\nOr:
\nInside the large sorting office in Dorningham’s Crown Street, the teams of
\npostal workers scurry around like demented worker ants. At peak times,
\nwhen the trickle of bags turns into a deluge, it looks as if they are about to
\nbe swamped by the swirling piles of letters and parcels.
\nSometimes the eyewitness approach can be used to give a story an unexpected
\ntwist, injecting a little more emotion into a story where the bare facts might not
\nregister in human terms:
\nThe headlights of hundreds of slow-moving cars lit up the roads in an
\nearly morning procession to Dorningham’s doomed steelworks.
\n10
\nIt should have been the first day back at work after the New Year break
\nfor the 890 men employed by British Aluminium. Instead the numbed and
\nconfused workforce were told to pack up their tools and go home.
\nThe eyewitness approach is also very useful in features profiles, where the person
\nbeing interviewed has no dramatic new revelations to share with you and you are
\nstruggling to find a suitable angle:
\nAnushka Patel ordered a large latte and a slice of carrot cake before she
\nsat down. It was a relief to find that Dorningham’s favourite actress and
\nfitness fanatic was, after all, human.
\nIn fact, this technique can be particularly well suited to handling interviews with wellknown local sportsmen who are being interviewed outside their normal environment:
\nFergus Miller paused briefly before adopting the lotus position. It was an
\nincongruous sight. For a fraction of a second the extraordinary image was
\nfrozen, like a still photograph of the Dorningham United skipper pumping
\nthe ball upfield on a grey afternoon.
\nThe moment passed and Fergus got up awkwardly. Perhaps he sensed
\nthe irony of the situation.
\nCase histories
\nIn stories where we are using case histories to highlight a particular problem, a
\nspecific, straightforward, no-nonsense intro can sometimes get to the nub of the
\nissue quite effectively.
\nOn a good week, hospital porter Phil Low brings home just under \u00a3200 for
\n50 hours of shift work.
\nPerson to person: ‘involving’ the reader
\nSometimes it helps to spell out to readers how an issue affects them by drawing
\nthem into the feature with a more informal style. The feature below on junior doctors’
\nworking hours could have been tackled as a case history or as an eyewitness
\naccount of a typical night on the wards. Instead, the option chosen was to address
\nthe reader directly:
\nIf you’re rushed to hospital on a Monday afternoon with a fractured leg,
\ndon’t be surprised if the young doctor at your bedside is looking red-eyed
\nand careworn. He’s probably been on duty or on call for the past 50 hours
\nor more and is desperately looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
\nIn the meantime, he’s likely to be dashing round the hospital corridors
\ntrying to find spare beds, picking up X-rays, attending to emergencies in
\nthe ward and making important decisions in a hurry.
\n11
\nOffbeat approach
\nThere will be occasions, particularly when you are dealing with light-hearted or
\nrelatively inconsequential topics, when a more humorous or unconventional
\napproach can make the subject more interesting.
\nWhere do you keep all your car documents \u2013 in a tatty old folder covered
\nin coffee stains or in several different places that you can never
\nremember? Well, help is at hand thanks to a new Dorningham Start-up.
\nMotorCloud has created a new app that enables users to upload
\neverything into one safe online space where they can also check the value
\nof vehicles, renegotiate finance payments and search for the best
\navailable insurance premiums.
\nThe company is growing rapidly and now has over 50,000 active users.
\nCEO Mohammed Razak says the app is the \u2018wheel deal\u2019 and was fueled
\nby a successful crowdfunding campaign just three months ago.
\nStorytelling approach
\nIf you’ve got a good ‘yarn’ to tell, let it speak for itself \u2013 in chronological order, if that
\nseems the most logical.
\nThey were sent off to some of the most desolate peaks and moorlands in
\nScotland and told to capture every detail of the landscape for a new online
\nmap.
\nA kind of Mission Impossible, you might think. But for five solid months a team
\nof workers were determined to record everything from the remotest of areas.
\nCovering up to 50 miles a day, they used a variety of vehicles to complete
\ntheir task, from transits to tricycles and even underwater apparatus.
\nThen and now
\nFor some nostalgia features \u2013 and profiles where interviewees are looking back over
\ntheir careers, it may help to focus on the contrast between their current status and
\ntheir early memories, experiences and aspirations.
\nAs a schoolboy of 17, Freddy Campbell vowed that one day he would drive in
\nthe gruelling 2,500-mile Eurasia rally. It was 2003 and he had flown to Naples
\nto watch the start of the race with his father. But it was to be 20 years before
\nhe realised his ambition and crossed the finishing line of the greatest sporting
\nevent in the motoring calendar.
\n12
\nOr:
\nMegan Barnet’s first job was making tea and coffee for the staff of one of
\nLondon\u2019s leading estate agents.
\nIt was a two-week internship that she never expected would amount to very
\nmuch but how wrong she was.
\nNow years later, Megan is a property millionaire with a huge portfolio in the
\nsouth east of England, where she wants to build a new theme park.
\nThe same approach can work even when the contrasts are rather more dramatic:
\nJason was only in his mid-twenties when he was sentenced to 12 years
\nimprisonment for manslaughter. Today he is living in Dorningham on parole \u2013
\nand trying to turn his back on the tragic incident that changed the course of his
\nlife.
\nOddities and contradictions
\nYou should keep a keen eye open for intriguing oddities or aspects of an
\ninterviewee’s lifestyle which stand out as being unusual. Often it can give you an
\nappealing intro \u2013 and in some cases there may be the added bonus of providing
\nunexpected insights.
\nWhen Sandy and Lisa Staunton tell you they are off to weed the dining
\nroom or sweep out the cellars, you could be forgiven for thinking their
\nhousehold chores a little eccentric.
\nBut the Stauntons expect to play host to 30,000 guests in the coming year
\n\u2013 so their unusual routine plays a vitally important part in their lives.
\nThe couple are the new keepers of the stunning clifftop ruin of
\nDorningham Castle \u2013 and they had to fight off competition from all over
\nBritain to become custodians of the 14th century pile.
\nThe \u2018right\u2019 choice?
\nGiven the diversity of possible approaches to any particular subject, these examples
\nat least clarify a few possible routes you could follow when faced with the prospect of
\nputting those first words down on a blank sheet of paper.
\nTo recap, we have looked at:
\n\u2022 ‘global’ implications
\n\u2022 human interest
\n\u2022 eyewitness accounts
\n\u2022 case histories
\n\u2022 involving the reader
\n13
\n\u2022 offbeat angles
\n\u2022 storytelling
\n\u2022 then and now
\n\u2022 oddities & contradictions
\nYou won’t be surprised to know that there is no definitive ‘right’ choice or combination
\nof choices for any given set of circumstances. The challenge is to identify which
\napproach is most appropriate to the subject and will have the most impact on the
\nreader.
\nA news story about a parking row might lead to a fairly straightforward news feature
\nin which we highlight the ‘global’ problem of parents blocking quiet residential streets
\nwhen they drop off their children at school. Then, in the course of our research, we
\nbump into eagle-eyed Jackie Smith, who’s waging a one-woman war on the
\ninterlopers. Speaking to 70-year-old Jackie, we discover she’s up at 7am every
\nmorning ‘on patrol’ \u2013 and personally haranguing every parent who dares to try and
\npark on double yellow lines or in front of drives. Although she’s clearly an extreme
\ncase and not representative of ordinary residents in the street, she succinctly (and
\nvociferously) sums up their arguments and is taking ‘direct action’ to prevent anyone
\nparking irresponsibly.
\nFaced with this kind of scenario, it’s obviously tempting to use the specific image of
\nfeisty old Jackie getting up at dawn to wage war on the unsuspecting parents as the
\nmost intriguing way of grabbing our readers’ attention and introducing the whole
\nparking debate.
\nThis is the way in which a feature can evolve as new facts come to light. And just in
\ncase anyone starts to think this is a rather far-fetched example, remember two
\nthings: (a) truth is stranger than fiction \u2013 the papers prove that every day; and (b) our
\nnation appears to be populated by colourful, larger-than-life characters who make
\nfantastic copy \u2013 and our job is to get out there and find them.
\nASSIGNMENT TEN
\nSubmit a 600-800 word feature profile of a local individual based on a face-to-face
\ninterview you have conducted. Include a short standfirst ‘selling’ your story to the
\nreader (but don\u2019t forget to re-introduce your interviewee in the subsequent intro).
\nThe person involved need not be a celebrity \u2013 or indeed well-known at all \u2013 but it
\nshould be clear from both the standfirst and the article why you consider the
\nindividual a suitable profile subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10. Lesson 10 : More About Features Progressing to in-depth features profiles; how to conduct successful face-to-face interviews. What is meant by ‘standfirsts’; using different features introductions to play up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1292,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/1292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}