being exposés or confrontational pieces. Background Human-interest reporting arose in the first decade of the 20th century. Originally devised by women, the journalists writing them were initially known as sob sisters because the stories were often written to elicit sympathy for their subjects. Within Western media, the human-interest story gained notoriety when these profile pieces were published in the American magazine The New Yorker, which began circulation in 1925. Scholars of journalism have put forward that the origin of the human-interest story dates back further than this, as they cite the 1791 biography The Life of Samuel Johnson as a profile piece in which the author James Boswell utilised research, interviews and his own experiences to formulate his work, all of which are instruments of standard practice for modern journalists. The human-interest story has been used by the mass media to give hope and inspire its consumers. Profile pieces on certain individuals and groups have inspired evolution in the public's perception of a "hero". Scholars Winfield and Hume explore how heroes have evolved from cultural figures such as Abraham Lincoln, to regular people through the reporting of the human-interest story. Stories such as Esquires interview with September 11 survivor Michael Wright portray the American hero as an ordinary person with an inspiring story or profound success. The format of human-interest stories is not limited to just news segments during television reporting or articles in a newspaper. The human-interest frame is used in many different formats with no restricting time frame. The human-interest story is not just restricted to news reporting as there are documentary series and feature-length movies that follow the human-interest frame. Varieties Human-interest stories are communicated through the mass media, and are presented in varying forms of broadcast media; such as television programming, radio and film, digital media; internet communication, websites, social media, and print media; newspapers, magazines and books. The wide consumption of the human-interest story has led to its prevalent reporting throughout the mass media, and its content varies across these different forms of media, although it maintains the goal of drawing an emotional response from the consumer. Television reporting Television reporting is the most popular form of news media and human-interest stories are common within news programming and are often used as a form of light-hearted news to end a broadcast after the "hard news" reporting. Televised human-interest stories often encompass interviews, and the reporting