Seminar Paper: The New Journalism

“The New Journalist is in the end less a journalist than an impresario.” – Mike Arlen

Penny Papers: the ‘old’ journalism, and ‘yellow journalism’:

In America there were The Penny Papers, these could be brought for 1p they were controlled and funded by political parties putting forward a point of view.

• Objectivity became much more important with the emergence of the wire service (AP)
• Had to be objective to be profitable
• Late 19^th century brought ‘yellow journalism’ the first move towards new journalism
• Can be thought of as frozen television

The New Journalism is an anthology of journalism put together by Tom Wolfe and E.W. Johnson, released in 1973. The book is seen as a manifesto for a new type of journalism (although Wolfe says it was never their intention to create a movement), and a collection of examples of ‘New Journalism’. The examples come from American writers, such as Hunter S. Thompson, and cover a variety of subjects from light (baton twirling competitions) to heavy/serious pieces on subjects like the Vietnam War. These examples are chosen because they don’t conform to the existing archetypal model of journalism, they are more subjective, more emotive, and contain literary techniques usually found in fictional works, not journalism.

Wolfe believed the American novel had declined because of a move away from realism, and believed journalism to be much more relevant. The New Journalism is in effect, a handbook or manifesto for combining literary techniques and journalism to tell a story much more effectively than a novel could. The techniques used were inspired by writers of social realism: Émile Zola, Charles Dickens.

The manifesto for New Journalism has four points:

• Scene by scene construction – Wolfe believed that the journalist should be placed into the events, should witness the events first hand in order to authentically tell the story, instead of relying on second hand accounts or information from other sources.
• Dialogue – Recording dialogue as fully as possible allows the journalist to make the reader feel more involved, and establish the subjects more as characters.
• The third person – Instead of reporting the facts as a first person account, the story and people involved are treated more like characters in a novel. This gives the reader a better sense of the ‘protagonists’ thoughts, feelings and motivations.
• Status details – Wolfe believed that the surroundings of the story were just as important as the characters and events themselves. He describes them as “the tools for a social autopsy so we can see people as they see themselves”

Shift in form of narration from diegetic to mimetic, from telling to seeing.

This alternative view of journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. It was unconventional, disagreeable, disruptive, unfriendly and anti-power structure. Placed the journalist as a character in the story.

Rebellion against formulaic style of old journalism: news pyramid, the five Ws.

– hectoring narrator: the narrator becomes part of the story

Influence of existentialism

Key to existentialism is Heidegger’s authenticity and Sartre’s bad faith. The main ideas were freedom and choice, for example:

“The colonised man finds his freedom through violence” – Frantz Fanon

Fanon’s view that the path to freedom is via violence; for Fanon the act of violence is essentially the extreme expression of choice, choice that has real immediate impact.

Other examples: Malcolm X, Albert Camus, Nelson Mandela.

Another shared element was the anti-establishment feeling; the idea that a “There is a policeman inside your head – he must be destroyed”, whichbegan to seep into journalism and bleed into the copy.

Marshall McLuhan – ‘hot and cool media’ – hot media is explicit and tells you how it is, cool media is implicit and shows you the story; cool media is ambiguous and allows the reader to interpret it for themselves.

Heidegger (directedness): People see what they want/need to see, not what’s actually there, i.e.Duck rabbit illusion. New Journalism allows for the reader’s subjective interpretation.

• Also Daesin – becoming the story rather than just presenting it

 

New Journalism and Freud

This new journalism style of journalism plays heavily on Freud’s idea of the id: unconscious and repressed desires – sex, violence, scandal.

This is still hugely influential on journalism today – tabloids: News of the World, The Sun.

Utilises sensationalisation (evoking the senses) – huge emotive headlines with big pictures. Exclusive dramatic stories, romantic stories, shocking stories, crime stories. Purpose is to make you feel not make you think.

Political and Cultural Scene

In the 1960s and 70s in America, there was a great deal of political and social upheaval, there were foreign wars, and serious military threats overseas. The 1960’s was a turbulent period, the great hope of John F Kennedy was destroyed when he was assassinated in 1963. There were disastrous wars in Vietnam, and huge controversy of the draft.

Muhammed Ali refused to be conscripted:

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

“I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”

Reasons for turbulence in the 1960s

Demographics: After World War II there was a baby boom; this meant there was a spike in the number of young people in the 1960s, creating a powerful youth culture. This youth culture would be a loud voice of radical political change: marching for civil rights, experimenting with free love and drugs. It was the younger people that were changing society.

Sexual Revolution: For the first time in America, if was legally acceptable for women to take the contraceptive pill, allowing them a much greater degree of sexual freedom; to be with several sexual partners if they wished; and the choice to have a partner/s and not have children. This ties in to an Existential view, that we are defined by our decisions, and it is the next decision which is the most important. The freedom of choice is crucial, and Sartre believed ignoring the fact you must choose would be living in bad faith.

– Also relates to Rousseau and the romantic movement

The Student Movement: Students were pivotal in bringing political change: sparking world-wide protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, the birth of black power, and widespread use of LSD (to access an altered thinking of counterculture). LSD was seen as a way to escape controlling hierarchy and have ‘real’ experiences. Prohibitions of drugscreated subcultures, such as the hippies, communes and collectives.

Music: was central for Sartre. Jazz was authentic the music of 1960s was a full frontal attack on the norms; it was drug fueled, and fed the student movements. They were protest songs wit an aim to subvert and be political.

– Gil Scott Heron: The Revolution will not be Televised.

– Bob Dylan: Hurricane – tells the story of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter who is falsely tried and convicted because of racial profiling.

• Dylan forced to alter the lyrics: state oppression?