Answer to Question #297310 in Marketing for Dineko

Question

Explain what "soft news" is and give a relevant example.

Answer 1

Soft news are stories that provide other background information about world events, human interest stories or entertainment news. They do not deal with serious subjects, that’s the reason why they are labelled as “soft”. Soft stories are editorialized. They can be subjective, and do not follow the Inverted Pyramid. Soft news doesn’t have strict deadlines, they can be a timeless feature and can be published at any given point of time. The writing style here is much more flexible. The purpose of soft news can sometimes be to inform readers, but normally it is to entertain, to persuade, to create emotions or to describe. 

Journalists who write soft news start by asking themselves what someone with no knowledge about a certain topic needs to know, and be certain to include that information. They make sure everything in their story is absolutely factual, they use anecdotes and looks for quirky angles to highlight and include detail that brings the story to vivid life. Exposure to soft news can affect consumers' attitudes. Soft media has been shown to increase a candidate's likability, which has a greater appeal to those people who are generally not politically involved than a candidate's political policies do. Soft news is typically more sensational, more personality-centered, less time-bound and more incident-based than other news. Examples of soft news includes sports news, entertainment news, celebrity coverage or human interest stories that deal with emotions.