From time to time I will be posting the media development resources we’re building here in Liberia. I would welcome any feedback, either as comments on the posts or by e-mail to christopher-dot-r-dot-mason-at-gmail-dot-com. With any luck that feedback will help develop stronger tools for the journalists here. If you are working in media development, or a journalist. Feel free to use these resources if they prove helpful.
Below is a tool I’ve been working on to use as a discussion tool on feature writing for newspaper reporters I am working with in Liberia. It is not a stand-alone all-the-answers-in-one-document guide for feature writing. Rather it is intended to be an organizing tool, to provide some guidance and structure to the process of writing a feature article once the interviews and research are complete.
The guide:
Guide to Writing a Feature Article
When reporters arrange interviews, they plan ahead by calling sources, arranging a place and time to meet or speak on the phone. Reporters also research and plan questions. The same planning is necessary when writing feature articles. Thinking about how we want to present the article and then structuring the information needed to write it will make the writing process easier and the overall article more effective.
1) Before you begin writing, make use of a basic, and likely familiar, tool: the “Five W’s and One H”. Jot each of the six words in a column, like below, and answer each one as indicated by the italicized text using the information, quotes and research you have collected for the article.
Who: Who is in your article (Example: community member, politician, community leader, NGO worker, etc.)
What: What is the subject of your article? (An event? An achievement? A problem? An issue?)
Where: Where is the article taking place? (A community? An office? A conference?)
When: When did the ‘what’ of the article take place? (The date an event took place, campaign launched, decision made, etc.)
Why: Why is this article important? (The launch of a new campaign? Achieving goals? Uncovering an important issue?)
How: How did the ‘what’ and ‘why’ happen?
2) Now that you have answered the “Five W’s and One H”, you are ready to structure your article.
Your introduction should be no longer than three sentences, and can be as short as one sentence.
Consider one of three ways to begin your article (character, setting or news intro):
- Character: Begin with a character if someone illustrates the “Why” and “How” of your article. If the article is about an HIV/AIDS awareness event for teens, and you interviewed a teenage participant who spoke about what he/she learned and how he/she will apply it to their everyday life, then the “character” introduction might be a great approach. For example: “Sixteen-year old Miatta Rose grew up knowing that she needed to protect herself from HIV/AIDS. But she did not know how to keep herself safe until a recent HIV awareness event organized by Unicef. “I had no idea how to protect myself,” she said. “Now I can share what I learned with my friends and family.””
- Setting: Begin your article with a setting if there is a place or event that illustrates the “Why” and “How” of your article. For instance, you visited a community to write an article about lack of access to clean drinking water. While there, you saw children carrying five gallon jugs of dirty water into the community, to be sold as drinking water. Such a setting may be an effective introduction for your article, illustrating the efforts community members must go to to get drinking water that is not even safe, not to mention young boys not in school. Use lots of descriptive language. For example: “Twelve-year old Uriah Kamara struggles under the weight of a five-gallon jug of dirty water balancing on his head as weaves his way through the busy market entrance to West Point in central Monrovia. He stumbles before setting the jug down in front of his home, bending down to catch his breath while sweat pours off his face. His family will use the water to drink, even though its murky brown colour suggests that ‘drinking’ is among the last things the water should be used for. “We have no choice,” Uriah says. “It’s the only water we can find and afford.”
- News introduction: Not every article needs to begin with a character or setting. Sometimes beginning the article with the “why” is most effective. For example, if you are writing a news feature about the release of the latest government auditor report, you may want to start with the news, rather than a character or setting. For example: “The General Auditing Commission release its latest report yesterday, finding that more than US$10 million in government revenues have not been accounted for.” The news intro is typically only one sentence long.
3) Now that you have chosen your introduction, you will need to provide the “context” sentence or paragraph (sometimes called the “nut graph”). This section explains the “why” and “how”. If you are beginning with a character, explain how that person fits into the broader issue. For example, “The efforts of young Liberians like Miatta Rose to become educated on HIV/AIDS issues is beginning to pay off. Liberia’s HIV/AIDS infection rate is falling, and experts say that drop is being led by increasingly well-educated youth.”
If you began with a setting, explain the broader context of that setting. For example, “Uriah Kenneh’s struggle to find affordable, clean drinking water is one shared by hundreds of thousands of Liberians across the country. According to the Poverty Reduction Strategy, about 75 percent of Liberians do not have access to safe drinking water.”
If you are writing a news intro, you similarly want to explain the context of the news. For example, “The GAC findings raise new questions about how the government is spending the growing amount of money flowing in from domestic revenue and international donors.”)
4) Now you are ready for the body of the article. Go through your notes (and the “Five W’s and One H” you wrote out earlier). What information haven’t you mentioned yet? Are there are any more people you want to include in the story? Use quotes and descriptive language that allows readers see the scenes, people and issues you are describing. This section can be anywhere from a couple of sentences to six or more paragraphs, depending on the overall length of the story.
5) Finally, you can write the conclusion. You want to leave the reader with something to think about. Often this means looking ahead. What’s the next step for a program, issue or individual in the story? When possible, and when suitable, consider revisiting the character, setting or issue you introduced at the beginning of the article. For example, “Experts predict that if the government of Liberia and its NGO partners continue to expand the number of HIV/AIDS education efforts, the number of educated youth like Rose Miatta will continue to grow”, or “Uriah Kenneh says access to safe drinking water would make all the difference in his life. “If we could get clean water my family would be healthy, I would be able to attend school and we would have more money for other things,” he says. “That would make me so happy.”. This section is typically one to three sentences, or a couple of paragraphs at most.
So there you have it! The structure of your article should look like this:
| Introduction (1-3 sentences using the character, setting or news intro approach) |
| Context (1-3 sentences explaining the “why” and “how” of the article topic) |
| Body of article (Anywhere from 1-3 sentences or up to six or more short paragraphs providing core information. This can include quotes from people.) |
| Conclusion (1-3 sentences wrapping up the article. Give readers something to think about it by, for instance, saying what’s next for the program/person/issue). |
Guide produced for Liberian journalists by Christopher Mason, christopher.r.mason@gmail.com, www.christophermason.ca. April 2010.
