How To Write Special Feature Articles | Page 5

concerned with local, state, and national anniversaries; and second,
those growing out of seasonal occasions, such as holidays, vacations,
the opening of schools and colleges, moving days, commencements,
the opening of hunting and fishing seasons.

The general policy of a newspaper with regard to special feature stories
is the same as its policy concerning news. Both are determined by the
character of its circulation. A paper that is read largely by business and
professional men provides news and special articles that satisfy such
readers. A paper that aims to reach the so-called masses naturally
selects news and features that will appeal to them. If a newspaper has a
considerable circulation outside the city where it is published, the
editors, in framing their policy, cannot afford to overlook their
suburban and rural readers. The character of its readers, in a word,
determines the character of a paper's special feature stories.
The newspaper is primarily local in character. A city, a state, or at most
a comparatively small section of the whole country, is its particular
field. Besides the news of its locality, it must, of course, give
significant news of the world at large. So, too, in addition to local
feature articles, it should furnish special feature stories of a broader
scope. This distinctively local character of newspapers differentiates
them from magazines of national circulation in the matter of acceptable
subjects for special articles.
The frequency of publication of newspapers, as well as their ephemeral
character, leads, in many instances, to the choice of comparatively
trivial topics for some articles. Merely to give readers entertaining
matter with which to occupy their leisure at the end of a day's work or
on Sunday, some papers print special feature stories on topics of little
or no importance, often written in a light vein. Articles with no more
serious purpose than that of helping readers to while away a few spare
moments are obviously better adapted to newspapers, which are read
rapidly and immediately cast aside, than to periodicals.
The sensationalism that characterizes the policy of some newspapers
affects alike their news columns and their magazine sections. Gossip,
scandal, and crime lend themselves to melodramatic treatment as
readily in special feature articles as in news stories. On the other hand,
the relatively few magazines that undertake to attract readers by
sensationalism, usually do so by means of short stories and serials
rather than by special articles.

All newspapers, in short, use special feature stories on local topics,
some papers print trivial ones, and others "play up" sensational material;
whereas practically no magazine publishes articles of these types.
SUNDAY MAGAZINE SECTIONS. The character and scope of
special articles for the Sunday magazine section of newspapers have
been well summarized by two well-known editors of such sections. Mr.
John O'Hara Cosgrove, editor of the New York Sunday World Magazine,
and formerly editor of _Everybody's Magazine_, gives this as his
conception of the ideal Sunday magazine section:
The real function of the Sunday Magazine, to my thinking, is to present
the color and romance of the news, the most authoritative opinions on
the issues and events of the day, and to chronicle promptly the
developments of science as applied to daily life. In the grind of human
intercourse all manner of curious, heroic, delightful things turn up, and
for the most part, are dismissed in a passing note. Behind every such
episode are human beings and a story, and these, if fairly and artfully
explained, are the very stuff of romance. Into every great city men are
drifting daily from the strange and remote places of the world where
they have survived perilous hazards and seen rare spectacles. Such
adventures are the treasure troves of the skilful reporter. The cross
currents and reactions that lead up to any explosion of greed or passion
that we call crime are often worth following, not only for their plots,
but as proofs of the pain and terror of transgression. Brave deeds or
heroic resistances are all too seldom presented in full length in the news,
and generously portrayed prove the nobility inherent in every-day life.
The broad domain of the Sunday magazine editor covers all that may
be rare and curious or novel in the arts and sciences, in music and verse,
in religion and the occult, on the stage and in sport. Achievements and
controversies are ever culminating in these diverse fields, and the men
and women actors therein make admirable subjects for his pages.
Provided the editor has at his disposal skilled writers who have the fine
arts of vivid and simple exposition and of the brief personal sketch,
there is nothing of human interest that may not be presented.
The ideal Sunday magazine, as Mr. Frederick Boyd Stevenson, Sunday

editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, sees it, he describes thus:
The