When we are not consuming hard hitting news, we often find ourselves reading human interest stories, or more commonly known as feature stories.
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Feature stories are set apart from hard news stories due to the memorable crafting and creativity of the reporting. These stories also tend to be longer and gravitate toward subjects that would interest the public.
Some of my favorite feature stories have been found in Rolling Stone. Their long-form profiles of celebrities and people of interest are always captivating from the first word to the last. If you want to read a great feature on Adele, I highly recommend this one.
This act of human interest writing goes all the way back to 47 a.d. when the Roman acta started including what we call today feature stories.
The acta included human interest stories and sensationalism that attracted readers. One of the first feature reports was that a phoenix was being displayed in Rome.
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These stories were first carved in stone or metal and were displayed in public places like the Forum of Rome. This would be equivalent to the magazine stands you can find in almost every store today.
Feature stories have come a long way, from actually being carved in stone to being published in magazines like Rolling Stone. But while the act of printing the stories have changed, the root purpose of them has not. These stories are still written in order to not only inform an audience, but also entertain them.
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