Feature Story Attack Plan

For my feature story I am doing a trend story on the Jenny Craig diet from the college student perspective as well as adding in expert advice from personal trainers and nutritionists about healthier diet alternatives in college. First, I plan on doing my lead, probably anecdotal, on my friend Amanda who is currently a Towson student and has tried Jenny Craig and sadly failed. In addition, I will talk to a personal trainer from the MAC and hopefully be able to find a nutritionist also to add perspective on what works and what doesn't when it comes to dieting. To balance the story, I will also go to Jenny Craig and talk with them about what the programs about and tips they can give to college students to make the Jenny Craig diet work.

Feature Story Ideas

For the upcoming feature story assignment, I have several ideas that relate to my beat. One idea that I'm seriously considering is to a story on the Jenny Craig diet plan and how it's not such a good choice, especially for college students and it's not as easy as they make it seem. My friend Amanda actually went on this diet and I would plan to interview her for the story, discussing her own experience with Jenny Craig as well as her struggle with her weight in college. Another idea I'm thinking about is the current yoga and pilates exercise trend. The story would be about which one is a better exercise workout, what they are/the benefits and also add insight from the yoga and pilates instructors on campus.

The "Wall Street Journal" Formula

The "Wall Street Journal" formula is widely used for feature stories. The formula consists of four main parts:
1. opens with a specific example, uses type of feature lead
2. nuf graf explains the point and what the story's about
3. body supports the general point
4. typically ends with another anecdote or description, or predicts future development related to the lead

Let's take a look at this example from the New York Times about the late song writer, Catalino Curet Alonso, aka Tite. The story opens with a descriptive lead; "He never did give up that day job, laboring in the Postal Service in Puerto Rico for more than 30 years," that continues on for another paragraph with a quote describing Tite's career in salsa music. In the third paragraph, the nut graf reveals the point of the story; five years after Tite's death Fania Records is releasing a two disc CD of his 31 most popular compositions. When we reach the body of the story, we learn facts about Tite's life writing music from a young age and his career in music.

“Dad was always writing songs, at home and out on the street, from sunrise until he went to sleep,” Ms. Curet recalled.

This story ends with a quote describing Tite's love of music by a friend and fellow musician, Ruben Blades.

"“I wish now, looking back, that I had asked him more questions, because he had a lot to teach,” said Mr. Blades, who suspended a tour so he could attend Mr. Curet’s funeral in San Juan. “That man loved music and culture and words and ideas, and talking about all of those things. He was just exceptional in every way.”

*picture from the article in New York Times

Feature Leads vs. Summary Leads

As we all know, a summary lead is used for the basic hard news story and usually contains the five W's. However, there's much more to a feature lead. Sometimes a summary lead is used for a feature story but they focus on providing a preview or what's to come.
When a summary lead is not used in a feature story, there are four main types of feature leads used. An anecdotal lead tells the story in a short format with a beginning, middle and end; often making the ending a surprise. The writer must be sure to isolate the major point and find an anecdote that makes the point clear and simple. Narrative leads, on the other hand, typically lead into a story about a specific person or place.Take a look at this from the New York Times, for example, about fashion designer Anna Sui:

“IT’S survival of the fittest at this point,” the designer Anna Sui said cheerily last week, as she glided around her Garment Center workroom, a space crammed with vintage mannequin heads, clothes racks, books and trimmings. She was referring, of course, to the nine days of fall collections that begin on Friday in lofts around the city and at the Bryant Park tents."

Descriptive leads are used in stories that focus on a specific place or person/persons. They use only the details that will support the main point of the story. For instance, this lead used in the Baltimore Sun about the creator of the new prime time show "Dollhouse":

Fox has a new and improved dream girl for the Friday-night fantasies of teenage boys, and she arrives tonight wearing a hey-look-me-over, super-short dress - the perfect model of female allure and submission

Her name is Echo, and she's at the heart of a dark new drama, Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon, the Hollywood producer who gave us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, once upon a time.

I liked Buffy, and I even learned to find messages of female emancipation in its imitators, like James Cameron's Dark Angel, featuring Jessica Alba.
Some other feature leads include question leads, where a question is asked for the lead telling the readers information, quote leads, humorous leads and even newscast style leads as seen in our textbook.