ter. If we recall the various elements
of news value we note that any incident may be given greater news value
by the presence of some unusual or interesting feature--a great loss of
life, an unusual time, a strikingly large loss of property, or simply a
well-known name. Such a story is called a story with a feature, because
its interest depends not so much on the incident itself as upon the
unusual feature within the incident. On the other hand, many news
stories do not have features. Many stories are worth printing simply
because of the incident which they report, without any unusual feature
within them. For example, a building may burn with no loss of life, no
great loss of property, and no striking occurrence in connection with
the burning. Such a fire is worth reporting, but there is no fact in
the story more interesting than the fact that there was a fire; the
story has no feature.

The leads of these two kinds of stories are different. When a story has
a feature it is customary to play up that feature in the first line of
the lead. If the story has no feature, is simply the record of a
commonplace event, the lead merely announces the incident and answers
the reader's questions about it.

The commonest of featureless stories is the simple fire story in which
nothing out of the ordinary happens, no one is killed, no striking
rescues take place, and no tremendous amount of property is destroyed.
This may be taken as typical of all featureless stories. The reporter,
in writing a report of such a fire, merely answers in the lead the
questions _when_, _where_, _what_, _why_, and perhaps _how_, that the
reader asks concerning the fire. The most striking part of the story is
that there was a fire; hence the story begins with "Fire." For example:

| Fire today wrecked the top of the |
|six-story warehouse at 393 to 395 |
|Washington street, used by the United |
|States army as a medical supply |
|store-room for the Department of the |
|East. Capt. Edwin Wolf, who is in charge |
|of the warehouse, says the loss on tents, |
|blankets, cots, and other bedding stored |
|on the floors of the building was |
|large.--_New York Mail._ |

As one reads down through the rest of the story he finds nothing more
striking than the fact that the