y with the persons or places mentioned in the story;
sometimes it is due to the story's application to his business life, his
social or religious activities, or to any phase of his daily existence.
That is the reason why political news interests every one, for we all
feel that the management of the government has an influence on our own
lives. The story of any political maneuver--especially if it is one
that may be looked upon as bad or good--carries farther than any other
story. Show that your story tells of something that has even the
slightest effect on the lives of a large number of people and it needs
no other element to give it news value.

=10. Local Reasons.=--These factors and many others give news stories a
news value that will carry them a long distance and make them
interesting in communities far from their source. Many local reasons may
enhance the value of a story for local papers. A paper's policy or some
campaign that it is waging may give an otherwise unimportant event a
tremendous significance. If an unimportant person is slightly injured
while leaving a trolley car the story is hardly worth a line of type.
But if such an item should come to a newspaper while it is carrying on a
campaign against the local street railway company, the story would
probably be written and printed in great detail. Any slight occurrence
that may be in line with a paper's political beliefs would receive an
amount of space far out of proportion with its ordinary news worth. News
value is a very changeable and indefinite thing, and there are countless
reasons why any given story should be of interest to a large number of
readers. And the possibility of interesting a large number of readers is
the basis of news value.

=11. The Feature.=--In connection with the study of news values the
question of feature is important. In editorial offices one is constantly
hearing the word "feature," and reporters are constantly admonished to
"play up the feature" of their stories. Feature is the word that editors
use to signify the essence of news value. Every story that is printed is
printed because of some fact in it that makes it interesting--gives it
news value. The element in the story that makes it interesting and worth
printing is the feature. The feature may be some prominent name, a large
list of fatalities, a significant amount of property destroyed, or
merely the unusualness of the incident. This feature is the element that
mak