The Features Department

The Dorchell Watchdog: Dorchell’s Largest Independent Newspaper
23rd February 2029

Today’s Most-Viewed Article: “A Feature on Features: Behind the Success of the New Glabe Gazette’s stellar Features Department”

After the New Glabe Gazette’s Features Department won Seldona’s top journalism award for the third year in a row, writers at the Watchdog journeyed from Genevieve to New Glabe to uncover the Department’s recipe for success.

The Features Department maintains what Aya, the Section Editor, calls “a professional informality.” A department meeting is held each morning over a pot of Kotorayan black tea from her grandparents' farm. At this meeting, and in all other occasions, colleagues are to address each other by first name.

If you ask her directly, Aya will attribute her Department’s success to the craft of her writers and the paper’s cooperative ownership structure. Since reforming financially almost four years ago, the Gazette has used its lack of corporate ties to publish information that other papers could feel pressured to withhold.

Through frequent collaborations with the recently-founded investigative publication The Seldonan Stakeout, Aya’s Department has published numerous deep dives into organized crime, political scandal, and financial manipulation. When asked about the impact of her leadership, Aya seemed hesitant to answer. After reflecting, she left us with this comment:

“Working at the Gazette has taught me many lessons, not all of which I learned by choice. To learn something is to cleave ignorance from your heart so that it may never constrain you again. My job is to ensure that no one, including me, remains constrained by ignorance.”

Aya asked us to conclude the article with this additional quotation: “Stacy, I’m sorry for doubting you back then. I guess a feature about Features can be viable after all.”