Story Theme & Angle:
Most Australian cities have sandy beaches, making sunbathing or freediving and surfing a leisurely hobby for most Australians. However, environmental issues are involved anywhere there is human activity, and beaches are no exception. It is urgent to draw people’s attention to protecting the Marine environment. Not only is the UN’s 14th Sustainable Development Goal Life below Water, but more and more oceanographers and environmentalists are organising events to raise awareness of the importance of marine conservation. The Ocean Lovers Festival at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, has resumed for a second year after taking a break from COVID-19. The venue and programme are expanding and growing each year.
This journalist will present and discuss how Australians call for more people to join the ocean conservation movement through an awareness campaign. The Ocean Lovers Festival is Australia’s largest ocean conservation event. The journalist will use the festival as a starting point, interviewing festival planners, administrators, event volunteers and participants to analyse the reasons for and the festival’s results. It will also raise awareness that marine conservation can be an everyday practice and will call for more people to join in the fight to protect the beach and improve the marine environment.
Target Audience & Publishing:
The expected publication for this News feature will be the environmental news section of The Guardian, which will allow readers with interest in environmental news to notice the article more precisely. It is also expected that the publication will be on Twitter and Facebook, as with today’s social media, tagging a news feature with the appropriate hashtag will allow for the quickest reach and increased exposure.
Based on the target publication, the target audience will be readers with a long-term interest in marine environmental news and local Sydney residents curious about the Ocean Lovers Festival. The audience will also include readers who live near Bondi and like to search community hashtags for the latest news.
Newsworthiness：
- Impact: The ecology of the oceans is a worldwide concern, and this news feature will call attention to the effects of marine pollution to more people who are unaware or inactive about marine conservation initiatives.
- Timeliness: This news feature has no expiry date as the Ocean Lovers Festival will be held every March. People can take action whenever they want to join the team to protect the marine environment.
Expected Respondents:
- Valerie Taylor, Australia’s environmentalist and photographer, has been a guest speaker at the Ocean Lovers Festival for two years.
- Sarah Beard, CEO Take 3 For the Sea. Take 3 calls on people to protect the marine ecosystem by taking three pieces of litter with them when they leave a beach or waterway.
- Brett Martin, Director of Members and Volunteers, United Nations Association of Australia (NSW).
- Lily Belova, Participated in the Ocean Lovers Festival for two consecutive years as a volunteer team leader.
The interactivity of multimedia：
This news feature will include photos and videos from the Ocean Lovers Festival in 2022 and 2023. The images and videos will be taken from social media sites and personal shots by journalists. Readers will see hyperlinks in the text for the related events and people, giving them a quick overview of the topic. Video or audio from the interviews may also be added to the news feature, allowing the multimedia content to intersect with the position in the news story to support the feature’s statement better.
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
I think you did a great job on the proposal! The story of The Ocean Lovers Festival is very participatory and, as an annual event, writing it as a feature story has great timeliness and significantly enhances the newsworthiness of the story. You mentioned that you would analyze the event from the point of view of the reasons for and results of the event and call for people to get involved in marine protection actions. From my point of view, I think you could focus your story on analyzing the impact of The Ocean Lovers Festival, which might increase the audience’s interest in marine conservation activities. In terms of audience, if the story is intended to educate people about marine protection and call for ocean conservation, I think it could be expanded to include generalist groups interested in marine conservation. In general, your proposal provides a complete idea and content, which is worth learning from me.