A news feature is a kind of article that blends a soft writing style with hard news reporting. Often found in the main news or “A” section of a newspaper, a news feature takes an issue and adds details and storytelling techniques to give it more depth and captivate the reader.
For example, a news feature on a local drug epidemic might include arrest statistics from the police department and treatment statistics from area hospitals, as well as interviews with addicts and doctors. It might also talk about the national picture, if available. It’s good to have a local focus, but a big picture perspective is also helpful, especially in large-scale topics like crime and poverty.
Feature articles are also more in-depth than hard news stories, so they can be about people and their personal experiences or even an exploration of an event. They’re often called people stories because they focus on individuals and try to humanize a set of statistics. These kinds of features are a great way to keep readers interested in a subject, and they’re an essential part of any newspaper or magazine.
Many new writers of news features make the mistake of trying to cover too broad an area with their article. For example, they might attempt to write about racism in Detroit or poverty in the United States, but entire books can (and have been) written on these subjects. A better approach is to choose a narrow topic and then take it further by introducing the audience to different aspects of the story.
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