Feature Story Writeup, Due Oct. 19th

tor“In a Digital Age, Vinyl’s Making a Comeback” by August Brown, featured in Los Angeles Times on April 26, 2009, is an quirky feature story; it takes a fluff issue that is not really hard hitting news and goes more in depth than a normal news story would. Whereas a normal news story would have probably simply listed that a new vinyl record store was opening up in Los Angeles with little more information than that, Brown writes about the decline and hopeful rise of the industry, as well as gives initial information on the owner of the store. The lead, while not straight and to the point (like that of most feature stories), gives enough information for the reader to gain interest. The first sentence reads: “Neil Schield knows the grim state of the music business as well as anyone; last May, he was laid off from a company at the vanguard of digital music distribution.” This tells the reader who, but does not answer the “what, where, when, why” until later in the article. Feature stories often do this, as they are written with the intent of informing and entertaining the reader without a need to only give necessary information. Brown addresses the audience more than a few times, writing statements such as “to play a record, you need a turntable [. . .].” This is one indication of a feature story, whereas in a regular news story any personal pronouns such as ‘me, my, you, yours, theirs, etc.’ are not tolerable and are generally frowned upon. There is a lot of visual imagery used in the article as well, especially when he describes Origami Vinyl as having “a minimalist-vintage décor featuring tungsten-filament lightbulbs and a spiral staircase.” The descriptive nature of the article pulls the reader in and allows them to feel as though they are there, giving them the sensation that they are familiar with whatever is being described. If the article were bland and void of such description, it would probably not be read and/or enjoyed by many people. The article is cut into different sections, each beginning with an emboldened phrase or set of words, such as ‘Trying again’ and ‘A high price’. This actually helps the story along, dividing it into chapters and telling whoever is reading what the next few paragraphs will be about. Brown allows for two different sides of the story to be told, although the skeptics of the vinyl rebirth are given less space and quotes than the other side. Being a feature article, the skeptics’ argument did not even need to have a place in Brown’s work, but their inclusion added more information and thought provocation (at least in my case).