Generic type of feature

It is important to stick to a type/ style to give a message to the audience. There is no such thing as a feature. We should avoid saying this in the industry and instead refer to the particular type of feature from the category. A feature always has to follow a articular generic such as a profile, confessional interview or a feature interview etc.

Comment pieces are controversial (right wing generically). News features are done in news and not in features. They always need to include a peg, which is a link to a real news story. There is no peg in magazine feature such as fashion spreads. Magazines compete with each other and in the past have moved their issue dates forward. So for example, March issue would come out in February or even earlier and so on. 

An arts review is a style of feature and is where you talk about a number of things based on the same topic. For WINOL, we had a Halloween theme where we reviewed lots of films based on this topic. Observational Features are like a non fictional novel and is in the style of gonzo journalism. People like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson are great journalists that demonstrate this. You go into an odd situation and write about what the people are doing which makes an interesting read to the audience.

Reader Response is based on competitions where you get readers to write in and respond to you. This is very valued in magazines and the editors are particularly interested in this area. The Sun were once caught forging their own reader response letters. If you came up with a good competition the editors would be really interested in you and your idea as it is important for the magazine.

Practical feature writing are things like a Confessional Interview, Consumer Review, Pictures/Fashion, Comment/Analysis (which works best if you have a debate between someone that is for something and someone that is against it), Reader Response, Feature Interview or Documentaries. 

News features are more: Profiles, Arts Review, Investigations, Observational and Reader Response. Profiles quite often are confused with a feature interview; the difference is that a profile is basically an obituary about that person. There are no interviews present and talks about how the audience may know this person and all about their background. A news feature is more like a clipping job where you round up the news on a particular subject and use graphics and things to explain it.

Investigative journalism is where a journalist initiates the story. The main sources of news are: court, parliament and the local government. 

Observational interviews are an experience of someone that you can go and film. It is a bit like a 'fly o the wall' piece. In the industry you shouldn't talk of a feature as that does not define what style of feature it is. We all need to use the same jargon otherwise you will appear amateur. 

Magazines have advertisement and editorial parts to it. The editorial side contains all the features which are not newsworthy. The editorial tone is always set in magazines and should be followed exactly. They address the audience in newspapers. The news all cover similar stories to one another. The only thing is a news agenda for a tabloid is usually more about television. 

The phrase goes; people come for the news but stay for the features, which is something that all online sites work on. The features need to be good and need to vary and be continuously changed to make people look at them. It is important that the features interest people to make them stay on the site longer.

Barkers at the top of the page in newspapers are like the hooks to get people interested. We had these on WINOL and all fought to be in them as you usually receive more views. These are also the main bits that are on view when the newspapers are racked up on the shelf in the shops.

Features are more mimetic and show you things like a movie. Pictures are everything in features especially fashion. Words hardly count in fashion magazines as it is all about the images; the words don't usually get read. News is aimed at the whole audience and tries to cover subjects that will effect everyone in some way. Whereas features are aimed at small niche audiences that you gradually build up. Breaking news stories can break out of their time slots and take over T.V for most of the day when the news is something that will interest everyone. In the newspapers when Mandela died there were lots of pages dedicated to him and his life.

Features are production lead and the amount of words each one contains is crucial. Some features are planned months in advance and are formatted specifically. If an editor asks you for a certain amount of words, you must do the exact amount for production process and format.

Feature writers are usually freelancers. Magazine's only have a small team consisting of a few people but they are always looking for decent feature ideas. Whereas the news staff reporters consist of a large team where reporters are available as and when a story breaks out.

Subject matter is secondary to the format; for example, people watching the 'Jonathan Ross Show' only watch it because it is the 'Jonathan Ross Show' and because of his guests.

If you want to freelance, it is important that you understand the format of the publication. Most features and magazines have the same or a similar format each time.

If I was to try and get into a magazine, I would show my photographs from my previous shoots and talk about how I planned, organised and produced them. I would also discuss the people I managed to get to help me such as hair stylists, the clothing brands and the make up artists for free which would prove that with a budget, I could do even better and bigger shoots.