David Brine - Features Editor of The Southern Daily Echo

David Brine - Image
courtesy of The Daily Echo

If you could just introduce yourself - your name and what your role is

I'm David Brine and I'm the Features Editor of The Southern Daily Echo.

How did you first get involved in features - what drew you to it?

David - Well I started off as a Journalist, very much on the news side, I went on and did work experience after I did my degree in politics, I went on to do work experience in my local newspaper in South London, a weekly newspaper there called the Surrey Comet and I managed to secure a job there and basically managed to work my way up through now on this newspaper, I worked on the news desk here for 15 years and when a new vacancy arose for the Features Editor fortunately I managed to get that from my experience of knowing the area and being involved in some of the features content over some of the years.

Did you had more of a passion towards features than news?

David - I wouldn't say so, no, I don't think that's really necessary, I think that there are a lot of similarities between the two and features just gives you more room to breathe and tell people's stories in more detail. I think that you need to, if you're working for news or features, you got to be interested in people and their stories and that holds true for either side of it really, I think it’s more rather than seeing it as being a bid divide between the two, I think they're two sides of the same coin really but as I said you just get more space and more of a chance to let people's real personalities come through and the detail of their story come out in a feature as opposed to a news story which might deal with the issue in more of a condensed form.

So what does your job entail - what is your typical day?

David: For me personally? Well the products I produce fall into different categories - there are things that appear every day in the paper such as 'The Heritage' section and then there are things that appear weekly such as our lifestyle section, which is fashion health and beauty and then I'm also responsible for a TV listings magazine every we produce Saturday in the paper, done in a similar style to what's in the national papers. Obviously that's packed with local features as well and concentrates on things like walking and cycling - general leisure time activities. Typically my day starts at 8 o'clock in the morning and I'm involved in all the major meetings to do with content, in the newspapers as well, then we decide what things can be developed for features. A lot of my time is spent commissioning articles from our feature writers and reporters as our news reporters write a fair number of our features also. Then there is a lot of reading back the features when they're submitted and then making suggestions for changes or helping source photographic material. Then I have to sign off on everything at the end of the day, I have to see the finished product and make sure I'm happy with it as its going to appear published, so I have to make sure I'm happy with the finished product.

Are features and entertainment difficult to get in to?

David - I think so, I think that the key thing is all journalists need to be curious and need to be always asking questions and never accept something at face value, on top of that they need to be interested in people, all sorts of people and all sorts of things that people are telling them. They need to be willing to invest time into it and talking to people, really finding out what exactly makes people tick - the reasons behind why they are doing the things they are doing. It can be incredibly rewarding, I think, to work in features because you get a little more time to do  a bit more digging and finding out about things by spending more time talking to people.

What aspects do you think make for a good feature?

David - I like to be surprised. A lot of features you read are quite like you feel like you've read them before, only the names have changed really. I like things that surprise me, Ii like to learn things from reading them but you can get a feel about when you read a feature about how committed to the story the writer has been, you don't want to come away with unanswered questions in your own mind, I like things to be tied up as well, I do like to be surprised, like to read something that's different that I've not come across before, something that manages to peak my curiosity

Do you have any tips for an aspiring features writer?

David - I think that you should try make contact with the people who are doing that job and offer them ideas. Send suggestions to them and be prepared to have a go doing it yourself and try and get the professionals that are doing the job to get some sort of dialogue with you, you know? I think work experience is a really good way of doing that - spend a week with your local paper, be it daily or weekly just to get a feel for what's going on there, the sort of things that happen day to day and see if it’s the sort of place you'd like to work, that can be a real way of improving yourself or just read features; the supplements in the National Papers and lifestyle sections of the National Papers and also your local papers; just read them and pick up ideas and tips from that. There are a lot of similar stories that go around and you can get lots of ideas and tips just from reading, really.