JOURNALISTS URGED TO BE BROAD INTEREST

By Friday Simbaya, Songea

Journalists in the country have been urged to write feature articles than news stories because in feature stories article are written in depth around the subject.

According to the facilitator Evarist Mwitumba in the just ended feature writing training to Ruvuma press club journalists, feature stories ara creative articles on events, situation or aspects of life, designed primarily to inform, educate or entertain readers.
The training was organized by the union of Tanzania press clubs and conducted Ruvuma Press Club which was based on empowering skills to journalists to develop the interest writing feature articles.

He stressed that unlike news stories, feature stories basically takes in detail look at what is going behind the news.

“Feature stories and news stories have a great deal in common but the only different is in emphasis. The styles commonly used for feature stories assumed that the reader has more time to read,” he explained.

He said it is high time journalists should change their mindset and start writing feature articles and be broad interest journalist not only depending on one issue, that is, to have nose for news.

"Feature stories generally contain more details and description. They go beyond most news stories by trying to discover the interesting or important side of the event that may not be covered by the six basic news values (5Ws +H), the facilitator pointed out.

In his closing remarks, Ruvuma Press Club Chairman, Andrew Kuchonjoma urged members of press club desist from corruption because corrupt journalists are tarnishing the image of the profession.