Jennifer Moody is a professional journalist who has been working for the Democrat Harold since 1995. She is not only a versatile journalist who can cover anything from fires to school board meetings but is also an excellent speaker.
Learning to write feature articles is not easy but Moody gave some excellent advice in reference to the difficult task. First she said, "Feature writing is as important as the straight news, it fills in around the edges."
Moody suggested finding your own style when writing. Realize that there is no right way to write a feature article, it can be hard hitting or punchy. The three most important parts of the article says Moody is "Be accurate, fair and keep yourself out of it as much as possible because unless it is labeled opinion or commentary your voice has no part in it!"
She goes on to talk about the importance of convention (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and how surprising it is that readers measure your intelligence by the mistakes you make in any of these areas.
When asked how she limits the size of the story and amount of issues in the story she said, "You don't write about the bakery, you write about the piece of pie." This advice was of great importance to me, because I never know where to trim the article, especially when tackling stories that could potentially veer off into ten other features.
Moody is absolutely a seasoned journalist and it shows in her writing and her ability to find the story. What is most impressive though is the way her stories draw in the reader and hopefully one day I will be able to be as excellent a journalist as she is.
At a glance:
Who: Jennifer Moody
What: Writer for the Albany Democrat Herald
About: Three ideas learned from Moody
