Byline Standard Made Easy

Byline standard

March 17th 1899 the st. Patrick's Day parade has come to a halt outside New York's Windsor Hotel on 46th Street near Fifth Avenue people are spilling out under the street from the lobby as flames consume the interior truck 21 five and a half tons of hand pumps axes ropes jumping Nets and a massive 85 foot extension ladder is drawn to the site in just over four minutes by a team of black horses still the firemen are too late to go in through the main entrance the captain saw a woman sitting perilously on the ledge of a six-story window 80 feet sheer above the stone flagging of the sidewalk she was waving her hand and screaming although the noises of the fire drowned out the sound of her voice there was fire above her the smoke below and the windows were giving out a peculiar ominous orange glow that told the grim story of the destruction within McDermott wrenched a scaling ladder from the truck and ran to the building raising the ladder he drove a long steel hook through the glass of the second-story window then he ran up like a cat cooked one leg over the sill braced himself drew the ladder hand over hand from beneath him and plunged the hook through the third storey window and thus like a great measuring worm the man and the ladder crept up the sheer brick wall at the fifth floor the heavy glass of the window fell in fragments and McDermott's face cutting him deep over the eye and on he drew his sleeve across his face to wipe away the blood and hook the ladder over the sill of the window where the woman sat McDermott went a few steps down the ladder grasping the sill with his right hand the woman slid out upon his left shoulder she was heavy nearly 170 pounds the ladder that anchored at the bottom swayed under the weight of the - like a cotton string for a moment McDermott paused before he let go of the sill then of a sudden from within the building there was a terrific roar of falling walls and smoke and fire gushed outward from the window above them McDermott let go and step down one round his foot held a moment and then the round gave way with a snap broken short off instantly the ladder swung far out to one side and McDermott hung there in midair by one hand six storeys up with a fainting woman on his shoulder raised standard Baker December 1899 you you last week we discussed the difference between articles based on fact and articles based on opinion I've already written a current event story as a fact-based hard news piece and last week we wrote our own column we also learned that newspapers aren't unbiased and they don't really claim to be but they do have an unwritten obligation to distinguish between fact and opinion it's not good journalism to obscure facts or % opinion as hard news that doesn't mean you can't write stories that blur the line between fact and opinion you can't and that's what we're going to be doing this week as we learn about feature stories features are stories that entertain as well as inform they're not hard news their goal isn't to give you all the quick details like who what when where why and how in a shorter space as possible and they're not opinion pieces the point of the feature isn't to deliver the writers beliefs and ideas in a convincing manner instead features are meant to shed light on some problem or person or situation through the lens of the writers point of view the strength of the feature story is that it provides a human filter to a larger story the writer becomes the eyes through which the story is experienced you've probably read a number of feature stories without realizing it if only on social media future stories are distinguished by four common traits the first is that they shed light on people places things or ideas that most people see as common but few people take the time to really notice so a feature story might focus on the city's taxi drivers or subway janitors or social workers people you might meet any day of the week but not really notice or if you do notice them you don't notice the drama that unfolds in their jobs every day we see the janitor is the lady who picks up the trash but a feature writer would take the time to find out what interesting things happen in a subway that only the janitors ever really notice features can also be about places or things you could write a feature story about a ballpark concession stand if the stand had an interesting history the idea might be that all of the people buying hotdogs during a game just see a place to buy junk food but the drama of the concession stand is that it gives it's money to charity or maybe it's a stand that was once owned by mobsters in other words there would have to be a hidden story that everyone else was missing but features aren't just about interesting unusual facts of history they also have to have a human element what journalists call human interest human interest can be hard to define but for the purpose of this class think of it as an aspect of the story that reveals human emotions and experience for instance if I wanted to write a feature story on the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871 I could spend a lot of time describing how the fire started how much damage it did in terms of dollars how many people lost their homes etc and all those details might be useful in a feature story but they aren't enough I would also need a human interest angle facts about large numbers of people are rarely interesting instead it's more effective to focus on one person or a small group of people if I were to tell you that a thousand people starve to death after the fire you'd probably think something like oh that's terrible but if I tell you a story about six-year-old Megan Smith with dark hair and dark eyes and feet dark grey from the ashes she walked through to rescue her stuffed bear if I tell you that Megan Smith died from starvation after the fire you're more likely to feel something remember feeling something is the point a story about the great fire that gives us an overview of what happened might be hard news and it might have its place in a newspaper but it's not a feature for a feature story you need someone like Megan Smith or in the case of this week's assignment the story of lieutenant Swenson of fire truck six this week we're going to read about fire truck six and how it's fireman climbed into a burning hotel then we're going to write a feature story that retells that adventure from a different point of view the perspective of the citizen who was trapped inside and dying of smoke inhalation when the firemen arrived I should mention that this particular story did not happen during the Great Chicago Fire but the point remains the same feature stories always focus on the most interesting aspects of any story not the most important ones it's probably more important that a thousand people have died then that one person but a good at feature writer will look past the important stories and find truth in the fascinating details often it's the interesting parts of a story that make it seem more important or to put that another way a good writer can call attention to big things by showing us the little things in fact that ability is built into the very structure of a professionally written feature because features unlike hard news are always written as pyramids to explain what I mean think of the Great Pyramids of Egypt they're really big right and most of the stone blocks that went into making them are actually in the bottom sections closest to the ground hard news stories such as the Hindenburg story you wrote two weeks ago are always structured like pyramids turned upside down they load as much of the who what when where why and how into the opening section the lead as they can the reason is that hard news is written so readers can get lots of information quickly the longer a hard news piece goes on the less information it tends to give actually people often stop reading a news story after the first few paragraphs so hard news is quick and front loaded with most of the important facts in a feature the most important stuff usually comes at the end it starts with a small hook and then builds an unfolding story in which all of the main facts are revealed and the writer at last concludes with some insight about the main story in order to write our feature about 19th century firefighters we need to keep a few more things in mind first features usually require more extensive research than hard news stories after all a feature isn't just telling us what something is it's telling us what that thing means and that means you as the writer need to understand it before you write about it second and I think this will make you happy features use an even more informal writing style than hard news stories do that is features are not based on urgency they're based on drama and emotion they're written in a way that features the narration of the story more than the events of the story features are about color and characterization and description and features are should more like fiction or creative nonfiction that is they have a beginning a middle and an end and that means you can use a lot of fiction techniques and presenting your story long as you're sticking with the facts and your reasonable interpretation of those facts the style itself can be creative think in terms of vivid storytelling and captivating details that make the reader see a movie in his or her imagination as they read well the first step in writing any feature is prewriting which means research as I said a minute ago you need to understand your subject before you write about it for a feature in a major newspaper you might spend hours interviewing people and visiting important locations and gathering data at a library while you were doing this you'd be taking notes choosing details that seemed not just important but interesting and looking for a story angle to write a feature you'd want to know what the human interest aspect was why will this story matter to readers and what's the most important thing you'd want them to take away from it well for your assignment this week you don't have to do all of that because a lot of it has already been done for you in fact you'll get most of your research from a feature written by Ray standard Baker in 1898 it's called an adventure of truck six and it's printed in your training manual I do want you to track the details that strike you as really interesting and vivid you're going to use them later and they'll help you as you write your own version of this story so keep your notebook handy as you read and jot down anything that strikes you as particularly fascinating these can be details about the fire or the building or the danger of the firemen are in or questions like what does a scaling ladder actually look like anything that adds to the story and makes you see a movie in your mind also notice that in your training manual I've marked the story beats that make up the body of race standard Baker's account what I want you to see is that the whole middle section of this article is told as an action story that moves from one moment of tension one beat to the next beats are important because they help you create suspense and drag the reader through the bulk of the story Baker's account is really well written and it's an excellent example of how to use beats notice that in the story each moment of tension is built around an implied question will the fireman find the person shouting for help will they find the stairs will they find an alternate exit will the building collapse under them will they reach the top or fall 60 feet to the concrete each of these questions creates suspense and is the basis of one story beat also as soon as Baker answers one question he gives us another one and the new one is usually bigger and more dangerous than the last that's how he pulls us through the story and that's how you're going to do it too but first you have to discover what that story is I think you are going to like it you [Music] the panic-stricken victims were frantic with dismay they sprang from out the windows and soon a lifeless lay some fell back into the burning pile beneath the falling debris and the loved ones of their families they never again would see it was then that noble Helen Gold through Widener mentioned door and hand the suffering victims brought unto her by the score she's one of God's good angels one whom heaven didn't spar with tender pity for the victims of that awful far far far far far the sea was wild and drear the horrors of that far twas not inhuman to see [Music]