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Go-tos for features

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Illino, Dec 5, 2015.

  1. Illino

    Illino Member

    Which papers do you like to go to for sports features? Not magazine stuff like SI, but your 30- to 40-inchers on locals/college/pros.

    Thanks
     
  2. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Huh? What papers?
    At my paper, if we want a feature story about local or college stuff...we tell a reporter to write it.
     
    TGO157 likes this.
  3. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Newspapers still run 30- to 40-inch features? I missed that memo. If you find anything longer than 25, I'll be shocked.
     
  4. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    We do em occasionally, usually on a featurized column. It's pretty rare though.
     
  5. Gator

    Gator Well-Known Member

    We run 40-inch features all the time. Three in the past two weeks between seasons.
     
    Matt Stephens likes this.
  6. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    I wrote a 75-incher two months ago and a 55-incher last month. If you have a good story, take the time to do it right and write it well. There's nothing wrong with shorter features, but I still think long features are pretty common.
     
    Gator likes this.
  7. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    We run plenty of features of that length in just about every section pretty regularly. And some damn good ones (usually), if I don't say so myself.
     
    Gator likes this.
  8. Human_Paraquat

    Human_Paraquat Well-Known Member

    I've written three profiles of ~ 3,000 words or longer in the past year or so. On the other hand, thanks to staff reductions, we typically have plenty of space to fill, especially on Sundays. All three of those were sports-related but ran as A1 centerpieces.
     
  9. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Most sports sections I've seen lately are so space (and ad) deprived that I'm having a hard time imagining any newspaper having a huge newshole in sports.
     
  10. pseudo

    pseudo Well-Known Member

  11. TGO157

    TGO157 Active Member

    I think there is more to gain from turning a 70-inch feature/enterprise/investigative story into a three- or four-part series, around 15-20 inches per story. That's just me, though. I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer the idea of chapters/episodes. Think of it like a TV show, if possible. I think you can sell a larger quantity of papers that way. Less of a one-and-done mentality for rack sales.
     
    spikechiquet likes this.
  12. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    It depends on the story. In some cases, you need all the information for it to work. In some cases, serializing works. The problem with serializing is that each piece really has to stand on its own because you can't count on people to read them all when they're broken up, even online.

    And serializing does little or nothing to help circulation. We've done it both ways, and there's not a difference.
     
    TGO157, BDC99 and Matt Stephens like this.
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