Feature Writing

Month: October 2016

Profile Analysis

I read Hope, And What Came After in this week’s New York Magazine. The non-traditional profile looks back on and dissects President Barack Obama’s last 8 years. It’s an amazing catalog of every major, and maybe not so major action he’s taken during his presidency as well as significant events (Wikileaks, General Motors, etc.) that maybe characterize his time in office as well as his actions do. I think that this profile looks to characterize his presidency through events to provide a concrete idea of who Obama is.

 

Class Agenda – October 5, 2016

Updated syllabus: feature-writing-syllabus-johnson

The important dates, broken down:

Wednesday October 19 – Profile draft due

Wednesday October 26 – Final profile due, pitch opinion/analysis feature

Monday November 7 – Opinion/analysis draft due

Monday November 14 – Opinion/analysis feature due, pitch feature magazine story (final assignment)

Monday December 5 – Final assignment draft due

Monday December 12 – Last day of class: Final feature story due

Check in about profiles

Workshop any additional pitches

Discussion: How to reach out to sources

Basic guidelines for the profile reporting process:

  1. Spend time with them. Get to know them. Get to the point where they trust you and give you real answers that get to the heart of what makes them tick, not just surface-level answers.
  2. Watch them in action. Whatever it is they do, make sure you’re there for some of it. You’ll learn a lot about them that way.
  3. Talk to other people who know them. The perspectives of others can be very insightful and useful, whether they are in line with how the subject sees him/herself or portray them in a different way.
  4. Don’t write it like a resume. Avoid just listing facts about the person in chronological order. Fill it with scenes, moments, good strong quotes, descriptions of the person. Start with the most compelling stuff, and then you can go back to provide some context for how the person got there. A very good thing to look out for is a telling detail or a telling anecdote.
  5. Have an angle. Same as with your news profiles, there should be some kind of takeaway. Draw a conclusion about your subject.

Things to consider when writing a profile: Poynter

How Many Stephen Colberts Are There?

For tomorrow: Find a profile story, read it, and post a short paragraph on the class blog with a link to the story, saying what parts of it you thought were effective. And one more thing: Identify the story’s angle. Come to class prepared to talk about it.