Don't Mention the War by David Miller

Author:David Miller [Miller, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, General, Ireland, Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9780745308357
Google: KxsqAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 1994-01-15T03:29:33+00:00

Features

Features are distinguished by a number of formal characteristics. They are longer than news reports, intended to set events in context and are defined as ‘soft news’ (Bruck 1989: 115). Thus the reporter can more readily include accounts from sources whose credibility is not evaluated on the basis of their authority. ‘Colour’ can be added by recording anecdotal, bizarre or incidental detail. The ‘human’, angle on features or backgrounders may allow oppositional perspectives to be aired or alternative information to be presented.

For example, the lead story in the Daily Mail on 8 March (in common with the other papers) revealed ‘bomber on the run is a woman’ with a strap line ‘Police link Evelyn Glenholmes with Gibraltar terror raid’. The story was dominated by official statements from the Spanish police and Geoffrey Howe. Inside the paper, however, a centre-spread started off with the individualised ‘soft’ news treatment of an eyewitness to the shootings: ‘A young mother-of-two watched from her bedroom as the finale of the IRA’s attempt to bring mass murder to Gibraltar unfolded before her in the afternoon sunshine’ (Daily Mail, 8 March 1988). This is a classic introduction to a feature piece. Starting off by personalising the story, it makes clear the vulnerability of the innocent witness about to see an alien scene played out in front of her eyes. She looked, we are told, ‘hardly believing what her eyes were telling her’. The witness account of the killings was carried in an almost celebratory way under the headline ‘Death in the Afternoon’, but nevertheless it was carried at length. It implicitly contradicts the official account given in the House of Commons and on the front page of the Daily Mail and every other paper that day. It is worth remembering that, although this eyewitness testimony was available to all the papers, five of the eleven national dailies did not report it.7 It is possible in news entirely to exclude alternative accounts or information, whereas in features such information is easier to include even if the ‘whole structure’ of the piece is ‘designed to discredit it as a political argument’ (Schlesinger et al. 1983: 91).

In American papers feature and background pieces on Northern Ireland (an international story) are particularly appropriate for Sunday newspaper editions, as they can be used as a lens through which to view and contextualise the week’s events (this tendency of Sunday newspapers is of course related to the political rhythms of both the US and Britain, where Sunday is ‘quiet’ in ‘hard’ news terms). In fact, seven out of the fifteen features on these events were published on a Sunday.

A New York Times colour piece, for example, concentrated on the background of Mairead Farrell, one of those shot. It included an extensive contribution from Fr. Raymond Murray, the noted human rights activist, who was also chaplain of Armagh women’s prison when Farrell was imprisoned there. Murray’s contribution allowed some of the complexities of the debate between the Church and the IRA to be aired.

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