Chapter 7: Creating News Features and Op-Ed

This information is found in PUBLIC RELATION WRITING AND MEDIA TECHNIQUES, 6th edition, by Dennis L. Wilcox

The Value of Features:

Feature Story – can provide additional background information, generate human interest, and create understanding in a more imaginative way.
News release writing requires left-brain skills emphasizing that logical, analytical, and sequential development of ideas.
Feature writing requires right-brain skills, such as intuition, image-making, and creativity.
Features are considered “soft-news” rather than “hard-news.”
Feature stories have the potential to:
- Provide more information to the consumer
- Give background and context about organizations
- Provide behind-the-scene perspectives
- Give a human dimension to situations and events
- Generate publicity for standard products and services
Service Journalism – the concept of publishing consumer tips and “news you can use”
- Can demonstrate how a reader can:
  - Save time
  - Make more money
  - Save money
  - Get something free

Planning a News Feature:

You have to conceptualize how something lends itself to feature treatment.
You have to determine if the information would be interesting to and useful for a particular audience.
You must be sure that the feature helps achieve organizational objectives.
A proposal should include:
- Tentative titles of the article
- Subject and theme
- Significance – why is the topic important and what should a reader know about it?
- Major points
- Description of photos and graphics available

Types of Features:

Case Study – in feature writing, a story that demonstrates the value of a product or service by detailing how it works and by providing specific examples that are often supported with statistics or customer testimonials.
Application Story – in feature writing, a story that tells how to use a new product or how to use a familiar product in a new way.
Research Study – in feature writing, a story that uses information derived from surveys, polls, or scientific studies to garner reader interest and to demonstrate the value of a product or service.
Backgrounder – a compilation of information about an organization, a problem, a situation, an event, or a major development. It is given to media to provide a factual basis for news to be published or broadcast.
Personality Profile – in feature writing, a story that focuses on a person of public interest to stimulate reader awareness of that person and/or the organization, product, or service the person represents.
Historical Piece – in feature writing, a story that stresses the continuity between past and present to garner reader interest.

Parts of a Feature:

Placement Opportunities:

Writing an Op-Ed:

Definition – opposite the editorial page. A page that contains the views and opinion of individuals who are not on the staff of the newspaper.
Concentrate on presenting one major ideas at a time.
Don’t ramble or deviate from your principal points.