A rewarding lifestyle section can offer readers and authors alike some much-needed relief from more demanding content, and is always enjoyable to write and read alike. A restaurant review, for instance, typically starts off by outlining both the author’s approach to writing it as well as any readership criteria needed to determine whether the venue can satisfy the demands of more upmarket readers.
Lifestyle writing can often be driven by personal interest in its subject matter. A lifestyle writer may have an affinity for yoga, vegan food or alternative therapies which helps keep his or her work fresh and interesting – as does truly understanding their subjects of choice – something most lifestyle writers do!
As a result, lifestyle sections often contain articles with overly simplistic content. For instance, recipes like one for toasted almond praline ice cream might receive five star ratings but it is unlikely any reader would actually attempt making it at home from a packaged mix; therefore a rating of four stars might be more accurate and useful for most readers.
Lifestyle journalism can be immensely satisfying, yet the field can be complex with blurred boundaries that has been described variously as service journalism, soft news or consumer journalism. Its relationship to advertising and sponsorship has led to considerable academic debate as has its legitimacy outside journalism itself. More often now however, approaches associated with lifestyle journalism are being integrated into hard news stories due to changing media trends, signaling a move toward more convergent integrated journalism in contemporary media environments.
