11 Feature writing versus traditional news writing

There are several important differences between feature articles and traditional news stories. Features typically are longer. Also, while traditional stories use a summary lead, feature stories use delayed leads or begin with an anecdote. The writing style is different. Traditional news articles tend to paraphrase information rather than state it verbatim, while feature articles use many quotes and emotional cues, focusing more on showing the reader what’s going on instead of telling. In this video, Chris Davey, assistant vice president for media and public relations at The Ohio State University, summarizes some of the differences between traditional news stories and feature stories and provides general tips for news writing.