continued with its plans to erect new signs with historical context and interactive online resources. The university also spent $390,000 on security around the monument last fiscal year, and drew scorn when campus police sent in an undercover officer to infiltrate a sit-in.
Graduation came and went, and Silent Sam still stood.
On Monday, at the beginning of a new academic year, UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South posted a statement saying the university’s inaction was immoral. Malinda Lowery, the director, called for the legal removal of Silent Sam, which she said was “a misogynist insult” to women that “whitewashes the past.”
“‘Silent Sam’ stands in the way of our purpose,” she wrote.
By midnight, Silent Sam had fallen.
Chapter 5: To be Continued
The most important piece of any historical feature is tying the past to the present and future. This is largely what separates many of these stories from encyclopedia entries. Where do the people who are impacted go from here? How will the past continue to influence us today? Chapter 5 reminds readers that this story is far from over.
UNC’s statue saga isn’t over.
As the bronze soldier lies in storage somewhere, counter protests are planned. UNC President Margaret Spellings and UNC Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith called the protest “unacceptable, dangerous and incomprehensible,” and said “mob rule” won’t be tolerated.
They promised a full investigation and onFriday, police took out three arrest warrants against protesters.
But so far, UNC officials are quiet on the question of what happens next with Silent Sam. One Board of Governors member said the statue would be reinstalled within 90 days.
Readers are reminded that this story still has a lot of unanswered questions. The subsequent sources echo the chaos. They have strong opinions, but it is clear they are still trying to process what has happened and what the future holds.
Barbara Rimer, the dean of UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, sent a letter to the Gillings school Tuesday. In it, she suggested a monument to a person who promoted peace, equity or prevention, instead of a return to Silent Sam, who, she said, “spoke loudly.”
“It’s no wonder that, as other states sought to move beyond the past by removing statues, our inability to do so caused wounds to fester until the pain became unbearable,” Rimer said. “It is not surprising that it happened Monday night. It is only surprising that it did not happen sooner. One hundred and five years of simmering were bound to lead to a boil.”
McInerney, the UNC alumnus, poet and a Cambridge University graduate student, said he found Monday’s outcome completely comprehensible.
“As the first public university, one embedded in the American South, this is not a thing that’s going away,” he said.
“The conversation is heating up, and we need to lean in to that conversation and continue to do this hard work around understanding our past.”
When reporting these types of historical features, reporters need to answer the following questions:
How did this item/place/group come to exist?
Why was it needed at the time?
How has it or the need for it changed over the years?
How do people feel about it now?
What is its future?
Historical features can also be related to a specific time peg. Reporters often do stories to mark significant anniversaries and events, usually at 5- or 10-year intervals. However, some events are significant enough to merit stories every year. For instance, publications throughout the U.S. publish historical features every Sept. 11 in memory of those killed in the deadly terrorism attacks in 2001.
Not all historical features are based on tragedies. Think about influential organizations, buildings, people or events in your community. How long have they been around, and how long has it been since someone really looked into their formation and purpose?
Time pegs tied to holidays and awareness months are also good fodder for historical features. Think about a yearlong calendar. What time pegs exist, and what kinds of stories could you come up with for each month?
Explainer Features
Feature stories explaining how to accomplish a certain task or goal tend to be popular with readers because of their relatability. How-to stories, ranging from practical time peg articles to more arbitrary evergreen stories, usually sprout from a question that might be on the minds of people in the community. Practical explainers can provide readers with information they need at a particular time. For example, azcentral.com published “How to Register to Vote in Arizona’s November Election—Don’t Get Left Out” one month before the state’s voter registration deadline. As college students prepared to move back into their residence halls, Buzzfeed published the article “How To: Showcase Your Space,” providing tips for decorating dorm rooms (see Figure 2.7).
Figure 2.7 Using Time Pegs for Story Ideas
Evergreen articles tend to be popular among magazines and address needs specific to their audience. Forbes magazine gears stories toward its readers in the finance and business industries, routinely publishing how-to features examining workplace and consumer questions, such as “How to Boost Your Value in the Workplace” and “How to Help Your Children Minimize Future Student Loan Debt.” Conversely, Teen Vogue, which covers issues important to middle school, high school and early college students, publishes explanatory pieces, including “How to Deal With Seeing Your Ex at School” and “How to Fix Bad Box Hair Dye.”
Explainers can also be used to provide background information or clarification on a topic. These too can be either time sensitive or arbitrary, as illustrated by The New York Times. When a heat wave hit New York City, the newspaper published “Why We All Need to Drink More During Hot Weather Exercise.” One month earlier, “Women Outlive Men: Why Do They Retire Earlier?” explained the issue in an evergreen story.
Writing and reporting an explainer feature is not as simple as voicing your own thoughts on a topic. Successful explainers should be relatable, informative and interesting so readers will want to share them. Here are some tips:
Choose something important to readers, not just to you.NO: Top 10 things that bother me about school.YES: Top 10 student complaints about school.
Be appealing by narrowing your topic.NO: Ways to get in shape for summer.YES: Fun ways to get in shape for summer.
Specify your target audience when possible.NO: Top 10 student hangouts.YES: Top 10 middle school student hangouts in downtown Charlotte.
Transforming explainers from soft news or opinion articles into more newsworthy pieces requires good feature reporting and writing skills. Be sure to get sources to explain their processes and reactions rather than inserting your own opinion. It is also a good idea to get a diverse array
