What is the difference between breaking news and feature stories?
Information is used by the media in two basic forms – news and features. News is an event or announcement of information happening TODAY, such as an event with a celebrity speaker. An event which happened last week would be old news and therefore of no interest to the media as a news item. Features, on the other hand, relate more to trends and discussions of topics – like new techniques in e-commerce or trends in health care. Features are of more interest to the media when tied to a particularly timely topic. For example, the feature about your new Web site offering dental health advice will be of more interest to media sent out during dental awareness week. This gives the media a “news peg” and a reason to run the story now. Even with such “news pegs,” however, there is NO Guarantee the media will show up at your “news event” or cover news simply because you sent a press release. Even when the media agree to cover a story such as yours, they may at the last moment change their priorit
