Throughout the course of this internship, there were several stories assigned to me that didn’t quite fit into the other categories described. Rather, the articles below focus on extracurriculars like upcoming events, shopping, philanthropy, and travel. When writing stories about food or homes, it is likely that a reader may already have interest in the subject at hand, whether they are looking for new places to eat in their city or ways to improve where they live. With leisure subjects though, this is not the case. As such, the demands of these leisure sub-genres differ and I had to approach each story’s rhetorical situation on a case-by-case basis, carefully analyzing the intended purpose and context.

For each of these stories, I made sure to emphasize what is new and noteworthy about each topic. This usually meant featuring special aspects of the hotels and centers covered, especially if there is an element of exclusivity or luxury. I have found that some interest tied to places comes from time. Meaning, openings are of interest, as are tales of a spot’s historical significance. For the one philanthropy feature, it was important to put the focus on the charitable actions and organizations while asserting why the subject is newsworthy: in this case, her status in connection to a local socialite.

This is also a category where press releases especially came in handy. Most of these stories originated as press releases sent to Modern Luxury contacts or responses to calls for stories about openings or specials. Here, PWR lessons facilitated my ability to understand the purpose of the communications and change them to suit the purpose of the magazine story. Whereas the press releases are a tool for persuasion, a magazine’s main goal is to inform. For Modern Luxury, an element of marketing remains, but the audience is different than that of the press release that is aimed at different publications, whereas the story is aimed at the magazine’s luxury audience. This often included taking the special or sale advertised in the press release and widening the focus to create a bigger story that completely introduces the context of that special which is likely the most newsworthy part of the story. For example, in one story below, I received many press releases about hotel seasonal deals and decided to broaden the story to cover more appealing aspects of each resort, including but not limited to those sales.

Despite the press release origins, I had trouble contacting several of the sources who, despite being the ones to initiate contact, proved too busy with the opening or special to converse back and forth. As such, I was forced to rely on the information originally provided by the press releases and what’s available online. Without inside information and quotes to supplement the story, this often felt impersonal and vague, so I tried my hardest to get creative and be descriptive enough with the information available. I did this by emphasizing the information available and using adjectives to focus as closely as possible while sticking to the facts provided.