[Imc-web] anatomy of a feature

[Paul Riismandel]

At our first web meeting I asked if those who move stories to the 
features post an explanation of why.  Well, I, for one, never did this, 
so I'd like to turn a new leaf.

In fact, I posted a story yesterday with the intention of making it a 
feature. It was a short bulletin about Gov. Ryan's blanket commutation 
of death sentences.

I wrote this because by chance I got the news pretty immediately after 
it happened, and I knew that it wasn't going to be reported on any local 
media outlet, except during any breakaway to nat'l news (like NPR 
headlines).  So I looked around the net and found a couple of reliable 
sources and threw together a story, cribbed mostly from Ryan's speech, 
since that seemed to really carry the significant context of the 
annoucenement, anyway (and it's public domain!).

See the feature here:
http://www.ucimc.org/feature/display/8824/index.php

I wish I'd been following the story more in the past, because then I'd 
been able to write something better about the context. Especially I 
wanted to write something more about Blagojevic's position, but I didn't 
find anything quickly enough. (Now I know that he's said something 
basically critical of any "blanket" commutation).

I think it was important for our site to have _something_ about this 
story, because it is major news both locally and world-wide, and so 
there's a high likelihood that people, both local and otherwise, will 
look here to find something.

Our site syndicates features to the global IMC newswire.  So for a time 
we were the global source for people to know that this even happened.

If we miss big stories like this, we look pretty penny-ante.  Note that 
the News-Gazette only updates once a day -- they didn't have anything on 
their site until Sunday.

Even though I broke no big news, such a feature is likely to bring in 
comments, which can be as or more illuminating than the original post. 
Just look at the C-U Cityview stories.

I've done similar things on Sept. 11 and during elections.  Our 
uniqueness is that we don't claim to be definitive, but we are truly 
inclusive.

Your thoughts are welcome.

--Paul