literary journalistic essay

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Literary Journalism

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Literary journalism is another essay form that is best reserved for intermediate and advanced level courses, but it can be incorporated into introductory and composition courses. Literary journalism is the creative nonfiction form that comes closest to newspaper and magazine writing. It is fact-driven and requires research and, often, interviews.

Literary journalism is sometimes called “immersion journalism” because it requires a closer, more active relationship to the subject and to the people the literary journalist is exploring. Like journalistic writing, the literary journalism piece should be well-researched, focus on a brief period of time, and concentrate on what is happening outside of the writer’s small circle of personal experience and feelings.

An Example and Discussion of a Literary Journalism

The following excerpt from George Orwell is a good example of literary journalism. Orwell wrote about the colonial regime in Marrakech. His father was a colonial officer, so Orwell was confronted with the reality of empire from an early age, and that experience is reflected in his literary journalism piece, Marrakech :

Orwell isn’t writing a reflective, personal essay about his travels through Marrakech. Neither is he writing a memoir about what it was like to be the son of a colonial officer, nor how that experience shaped his adult life. He writes in a descriptive way about the Jewish quarters in Marrakech, about the invisibility of the “natives,” and about the way citizenship doesn’t ensure equality under a colonial regime.

Generating Ideas for Literary Journalism

One way to incorporate literary journalism into an introductory or intermediate level course is simply to have students write personal essays first. Then the students can go back and research the facts behind the personal experiences related in their essays. They can incorporate historical data, interviews, or broaden the range of their personal essay by exploring the cultural or political issues hinted at in their personal essays.

If a student writes, in passing, about the first presidential candidate they were eligible to vote for, then they can include facts and figures around that particular election, as well as research other events that were current at that time, for example. As with other essay forms, students should find topics that are important to them.

What Is Literary Journalism?

Carl T. Gossett Jr / Getty Images

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. This form of writing can also be called  narrative journalism or new journalism . The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction ; more often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.

In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists , Norman Sims observed that literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer surfaces to show that an author is at work."

Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee , Jane Kramer, Mark Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past include Stephen Crane, Henry Mayhew , Jack London , George Orwell , and Tom Wolfe.

Characteristics of Literary Journalism

There is not exactly a concrete formula that writers use to craft literary journalism, as there is for other genres, but according to Sims, a few somewhat flexible rules and common features define literary journalism. "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism , voice , a focus on ordinary people ... and accuracy.

"Literary journalists recognize the need for a consciousness on the page through which the objects in view are filtered. A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a formal definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer used the term 'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules, Kramer included:

• Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds...
• Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor...
• Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
• Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

... Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined. ... Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy—or mostly so—precisely because their work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are imaginary." 

Why Literary Journalism Is Not Fiction or Journalism

The term "literary journalism" suggests ties to fiction and journalism, but according to Jan Whitt, literary journalism does not fit neatly into any other category of writing. "Literary journalism is not fiction—the people are real and the events occurred—nor is it journalism in a traditional sense.

"There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and (often) experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of literary journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism explores the lives of those who are affected by those institutions."

The Role of the Reader

Because creative nonfiction is so nuanced, the burden of interpreting literary journalism falls on readers. John McPhee, quoted by Sims in "The Art of Literary Journalism," elaborates: "Through dialogue , words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to the reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A writer simply gets things started."

Literary Journalism and the Truth

Literary journalists face a complicated challenge. They must deliver facts and comment on current events in ways that speak to much larger big picture truths about culture, politics, and other major facets of life; literary journalists are, if anything, more tied to authenticity than other journalists. Literary journalism exists for a reason: to start conversations.

Literary Journalism as Nonfiction Prose

Rose Wilder talks about literary journalism as nonfiction prose—informational writing that flows and develops organically like a story—and the strategies that effective writers of this genre employ in The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary journalist. "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative and rhetorical  techniques generally associated with fiction.'

"Through these stories and sketches, authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the people and culture depicted.' Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting the genre  itself allows readers to 'behold others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own.'

"He goes on to suggest, 'There is something intrinsically political—and strongly democratic—about literary journalism—something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E. Hartsock points out, the bulk of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed 'largely by professional journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to be found in the newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de facto journalists.'"

She concludes, "Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be emblematic of a larger truth."

Background of Literary Journalism

This distinct version of journalism owes its beginnings to the likes of Benjamin Franklin, William Hazlitt, Joseph Pulitzer, and others. "[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary journalism," begins Carla Mulford. "Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary journalism should take—that it should be situated in the ordinary world—even though her background was not typically found in newspaper writing." 

Literary journalism as it is now was decades in the making, and it is very much intertwined with the New Journalism movement of the late 20th century. Arthur Krystal speaks to the critical role that essayist William Hazlitt played in refining the genre: "A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in their egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have been unthinkable a few generations earlier."

Robert Boynton clarifies the relationship between literary journalism and new journalism, two terms that were once separate but are now often used interchangeably. "The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it was used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism—muckraking on behalf of immigrants and the poor—one found in the New York World and other papers... Although it was historically unrelated to [Joseph] Pulitzer's New Journalism, the genre of writing that Lincoln Steffens called 'literary journalism' shared many of its goals."

Boynton goes on to compare literary journalism with editorial policy. "As the city editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s, Steffens made literary journalism—artfully told narrative stories about subjects of concern to the masses—into editorial policy, insisting that the basic goals of the artist and the journalist (subjectivity, honesty, empathy) were the same."

• Boynton, Robert S. The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.
• Krystal, Arthur. "Slang-Whanger." The New Yorker, 11 May 2009.
• Lane, Rose Wilder.  The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist . Edited by Amy Mattson Lauters, University of Missouri Press, 2007.
• Mulford, Carla. “Benjamin Franklin and Transatlantic Literary Journalism.”  Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-1830 , edited by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 75–90.
• Sims, Norman. True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism . 1st ed., Northwestern University Press, 2008.
• Sims, Norman. “The Art of Literary Journalism.”  Literary Journalism , edited by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer, Ballantine Books, 1995.
• Sims, Norman. The Literary Journalists . Ballantine Books, 1984.
• Whitt, Jan. Women in American Journalism: A New History . University of Illinois Press, 2008.
• An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
• Creative Nonfiction
• John McPhee: His Life and Work
• Defining Nonfiction Writing
• Genres in Literature
• literary present (verbs)
• Third-Person Point of View
• Tips on Great Writing: Setting the Scene
• A Guide to All Types of Narration, With Examples
• What Is a Synopsis and How Do You Write One?
• The Essay: History and Definition
• A Look at the Roles Characters Play in Literature
• What Is a Novel? Definition and Characteristics
• Point of View in Grammar and Composition

Journalism Online

Real Information For Real People

What is Literary Journalism: a Guide with Examples

Literary journalism is a genre created with the help of a reporter’s inner voice and employing a writing style based on literary techniques. The journalists working in the genre of literary journalism must be able to use the whole literary arsenal: epithets, impersonations, comparisons, allegories, etc. Thus, literary journalism is similar to fiction. At the same time, it remains journalism , which is the opposite of fiction as it tells a true story. The journalist’s task here is not only to inform us about specific events but also to affect our feelings (mainly aesthetic ones) and explore the details that ordinary journalism overlooks.

Characteristics of literary journalism

Modern journalism is constantly changing, but not all changes are good for it (take fake news proliferating thanks to social media , for instance). Contemporary literary journalism differs from its historic predecessor in the following:

• Literary journalism almost completely lost its unity with literature
• Journalists have stopped relying on the literary features of the language and style
• There are fewer and fewer articles in the genre of literary journalism in modern editions
• Contemporary media has lost the need in literary journalism
• The habits of media consumers today are not sophisticated enough for a revival of literary journalism

The most prominent works of literary journalism

With all this, it’s no surprise that we need to go back in time to find worthy examples of literary journalism. Fortunately, it wasn’t until the 1970-s that literary journalism came to an end, so here are 4 great works of the genre that are worth every minute of your attention.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Mark Twain studied journalism from the age of 12 and until the end of his life. It brought him his first glory and a pseudonym and made him a writer. In 1867, Twain (as a correspondent of the newspaper Daily Alta California , San Francisco) went on a sea voyage to Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt. His reports and travel records turned into the book The Innocents Abroad , which made him famous all over the world.

In some sense, American journalism came out of letters that served as an important source of information about life in the colonies. The newspaper has long been characterized by an epistolary subjectivity, and Twain’s book recalls the times when no one thought that neutrality would one day become one of the hallmarks of the “right” journalism.

Of course, Twain’s travel around the Old World was a journey not only through geography but also through the history that Twain resolutely refused to worship. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not too much, but the more valuable are the lyrical and sublime notes that sound when Twain-the-narrator is truly captivated by something.

John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946)

John Hersey was a war correspondent and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut story A Bell for Adano . As a reporter of The New Yorker , he was one of the first journalists from the USA who came to Hiroshima to describe the consequences of the atomic bombing.

Starting with where two doctors, two priests, a seamstress, and a plant employee were and what they were doing at exactly 08:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Hersey describes the year they lived after that. Hersey’s uniform and detached tone seems to be the only appropriate medium in relation to what one would call indescribable and inexpressible. Without allowing himself sentimentality, admiring horrors, or obvious partiality, he doesn’t miss any of the details that add up to a horrible and magnificent picture.

Hiroshima became a sensation due to the formidable brevity of the author’s prose, which tried to give the reader the most explicit (and the most complete) idea of what happened for the first time in mankind’s history

Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood” (1965)

Truman Capote turned to journalism as a young writer looking for a new form of self-expression. He read an article about the murder of the family of a farmer Herbert Clutter in Holcomb City (Kansas) in the newspaper and went there to collect the material. His original idea was to write about how a brutal murder influenced the life of the quiet backwoods. The killers were caught, and Capote decided to use their confessions in his book. He finished it only after the killers were hanged. This way, the six-year story got the finale.

In Cold Blood was published in “The New Yorker” in 1965. Next year it was released as a book that became the benchmark of true crime and a super bestseller. “In Cold Blood” includes:

• A stylistic brilliance.
• Inexorable footsteps of doom destroying both innocent and guilty.
• The horror hidden in a person and waiting for a chance to break out.

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Tomas Wolfe is one of the key figures of literary journalism. Mainly due to his creative and, so to speak, production efforts, “the new journalism” became an essential part of American culture and drew close attention (both critical and academic).

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test became one of the hallmarks of this type of journalism with its focus on aesthetic expressiveness (along with documentary authenticity). This is a story about the writer Ken Kesey and his friends and associates’ community, “Merry Pranksters”, who spread the idea of the benefits of expanding consciousness.

Wolfe decided to plunge into the “subjective reality” of the characters and their adventures. To convey them to the reader, he had to “squeeze” the English language: Wolfe changes prose to poetry , dives into the stream of consciousness, and mocks the traditional punctuation. In general, he does just about everything to make a crazy carnival come to life on the pages of his book (without actually participating in it). Compare that with gonzo journalism by Hunter S. Thompson , the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which draws upon some similar themes.

The book’s main part is devoted to the journey of the “pranksters” on a psychedelic propaganda bus and the “acid tests” themselves, which were actually parties where a lot of people took LSD. Wolfe had to use different sources of information to reconstruct these events, and it’s hard to believe that he didn’t experience any of them himself. Yet, no matter how bright his book shines and how much freedom it shows, Wolfe makes it clear that he’s talking about a doomed project and an ending era.

You might also like

What is yellow journalism?

6 Famous Journalists to Know About

Martez Edwards of Alabama Navigates the NCAA Rules And Regulations

What is Literary Journalism?

In this article, a journalist explains what is literary journalism and its key conventions.

Literary journalism is a type of writing that uses narrative techniques that are more typical of novels, short stories and other forms of fiction. However, similar to traditional news reporting, it is presenting a factual story to a public audience.

It is also known as creative nonfiction, immersion journalism, narrative journalism and new journalism.

The last of those terms, ‘new journalism’ came about during the 1960s and 70s, when the writings of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, George Plimpton, and Truman Capote, and gonzo journalism , reached the public sphere.

Before reading on, check out our guide to the best journalism tools .

Defining Literary Journalism

Recognizing literary journalism, criticism of literary journalism, the role of literary journalism today, resources for journalists, what is the meaning of literary journalism, why is literary journalism important, what is the difference between literary journalism and other journalism.

Norman Sim’s seminal anthology, The Literary Journalists , included the work of some of those writers. It also tried to define just what a literary journalist is. Within its opening passage, it read:

“The literary journalists are marvelous observers whose meticulous attention to detail is wedded to the tools and techniques of the fiction writer. Like reporters, they are fact gatherers whose material is the real world.

“Like fiction writers, they are consummate storytellers who endow their stories with a narrative structure and a distinctive voice.”

Although the history of literary journalism goes back much further than 1960s, it was then when writers such as Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote and Gay Talese exposed this style to the masses.

Their work was renowned for its immersive qualities and its ability to build a plot and narrative. Instead of sticking to journalistic formulas, they wrote in their own voice and in a stylistic narrative that was uniquely theirs.

This writing style was not typical of the newspaper articles of the day.

Although their long-form stories and in-depth research was more suited to literature than newspapers, the likes of Esquire and The New Yorker did publish their work with great success.

New Journalism Not Being New

The differences from the common journalism of the 1960s were notable, hence why their work went under an umbrella category known as ‘new journalism’.

That being said, this style was not new at all, with literary journalism already being written in both North America and further afield.

John S. Bak, founding President of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, points to how journalism evolved in different regions, yet when it comes to this form of writing, there are still overlapping traits. He wrote:

“Since journalism in America and in Europe evolved from different traditions, it is only natural that their literary journalism should have done so as well. But the picture of a U.S.-led literary journalism and a European-produced literary reportage is not as clearly demarcated as one would think or hope.”

Literary journalism takes the qualities of both literature and reporting and melds them into something unique. According to the aforementioned Sims, there are some common features that the best literary nonfiction writers employ. He said:

“Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism, voice, a focus on ordinary people… and accuracy.”

Editor, Mark Kramer echoes these characteristics in his ‘breakable rules’ for literary journalists, which he penned for Harvard University. His rules are as follows.

• Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects’ worlds and in background research.
• Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor with readers and with sources.
• Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
• Literary journalists write in “intimate voice,” informal, frank, human and ironic.
• Style counts, and tends to be plain and spare.
• Literary journalists write from a disengaged and mobile stance, from which they tell stories and also turn and address readers directly.
• Structure counts, mixing primary narrative with tales and digressions to amplify and reframe events.
• Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers’ sequential reactions.

As said above though, these are all ‘breakable rules’.

The difficulty in defining this type of writing was also touched upon in the 2012 anthology, Global ‘‘Literary Journalism: Exploring the Journalistic Imagination’ by Keeble and Tulloch.

They stated: “On a value-free level, we might argue that, rather than a stable genre or family of genres, literary journalism defines a field where different traditions and practices of writing intersect”.

However, when defining literary journalism and literary reportage, Keeble and Tulloch’s definition does work well: “‘The defining mark of literary journalism is the personality of the writer, the individual and intimate voice of a whole, candid person . . . speaking simply in his or her own right”.

Much of the criticism relating to literary journalism relates to its prioritizing style and narrative technique, over reportage.

As Josh Roiland of the University of Maine puts it, “literary journalism has experienced a resurgence in recent years, and like all popular movements it has sustained a backlash from those who believe it fetishizes narrative at the expense of research and reporting.”

Author and academic, D.G. Myers, shared another critique of the genre, calling it out for ‘pretention’.

He wrote: “Apparently, literary journalism is fancy journalism, highbrow journalism. It is journalism plus fine writing. It is journalism with literary pretensions. But here’s the thing about literary pretensions. They are pretentious. They are phoney. Good writers don’t brag about writing literature, which is a title of honor.”

He also points out how the stylistic methods used are a mixture of travel writing and historical record, rather than plain journalism. He added:

“(Literary journalism) is history because it undertakes to determine what happened in a past, travel writing because it depends upon first-hand observation in addition to documented evidence.”

Liz Fakazis wrote for Britannica on the subject of literary journalism and its critics. She wrote: “(Literary journalism) ignited a debate over how much like a novel or short story a journalistic piece could be before it began violating journalism’s commitment to truth and facts.”

Overall, most of these critiques appear to come from a similar point of view.

That is that the personal essay style of writing that embodies literary journalism is too far removed from the values of news reporting in its most puritanical form. For instance, some argue that this type of reporting does not put enough emphasis on objectivity.

Fakazis further discussed this in her Britannica piece, pointing toward the evolution of truth within journalism as a reason and justification for this type of writing . She wrote:

“(Literary journalists) works challenged the ideology of objectivity and its related practices that had come to govern the profession. The (literary journalists) argued that objectivity does not guarantee truth and that so-called “objective” stories can be more misleading than stories told from a clearly presented personal point of view.

“Mainstream news reporters echoed the New Journalists’ arguments as they began doubting the ability of “objective” journalism to arrive at truth—especially after more traditional reporting failed to convey the complex truth of events such as McCarthyism in the 1950s, the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s, and the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.”

The fact that objectivity was removed as a guiding principle of the Society of Professional Journalists (replaced with fairness and accuracy) in 1996 further pushes this argument.

As is discussed in a ThoughtCo article by academic Richard Nordquist , although narrative nonfiction is obliged to report the facts, it is also required to share the bigger picture and this can be even more important. He wrote:

“Literary journalists face a complicated challenge. They must deliver facts and comment on current events in ways that speak to much larger big picture truths about culture, politics, and other major facets of life; literary journalists are, if anything, more tied to authenticity than other journalists. Literary journalism exists for a reason: to start conversations.

Ultimately, literary journalism is a type of reportage that requires time, commitment and deep knowledge of the craft. It’s not something that you’ll read in a tabloid or online often, but it’s rewarding for the writer and readers.

What Is Advocacy Journalism?

What Is An Inverted Pyramid in Journalism

What Is Citizen Journalism?

Is Journalism a Good Career?

Is Journalism Dying?

What Is Data Journalism?

11 Best Journalism Tools For Busy Professionals

What Is Muckraking Journalism?

What Is Watchdog Journalism? A Helpful Guide

What Is New Journalism?

What Is Science Journalism? A Detailed Guide

10 Best Tools for Data Journalism For Research and Data Management

Best 7 Journalism Skills To Make You a Successful Journalist

What Is Yellow Journalism?

5 W’s of Journalism: Everything You Need To Know

What Is Editing In Journalism? A Comprehensive Guide For Budding Journalists

What Is Gonzo Journalism? Explained

FAQs About literary journalism

Literary journalism is a genre of journalistic work that consists of writing that embraces narrative techniques while presenting a factual story.

Literary journalism contextualizes a story and presents more than just the plain facts, which at times do not give a rounded view of the going-on being reported on.

The key difference is the writing style. Literary journalism takes on narrative techniques that are more typical of novels, short stories, and other forms of literature. Meanwhile, traditional journalism reports the facts and sticks to formulas, such as the inverted pyramid, which is designed for sharing news efficiently.

Cian Murray is an experienced writer and editor, who graduated from Cardiff University’s esteemed School of Journalism, Media and Culture. His work has been featured in both local and national media, and he has also produced content for multinational brands and agencies.

View all posts

• Tools and Resources
• Customer Services
• Communication and Culture
• Communication and Social Change
• Communication and Technology
• Communication Theory
• Critical/Cultural Studies
• Gender (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies)
• Health and Risk Communication
• Intergroup Communication
• International/Global Communication
• Interpersonal Communication
• Journalism Studies
• Language and Social Interaction
• Mass Communication
• Media and Communication Policy
• Organizational Communication
• Political Communication
• Rhetorical Theory
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Literary journalism.

• Richard Lance Keeble Richard Lance Keeble Centre for Research in Journalism (CRJ), University of Lincoln
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.836
• Published online: 30 July 2018

“Literary journalism” is a highly contested term, its essential elements being a constant source of debate. A range of alternative concepts are promoted: the “New Journalism,” “literary non-fiction,” “creative non-fiction,” “narrative non-fiction,” “the literature of fact,” “lyrics in prose,” “gonzo journalism” and, more recently, “long-form journalism,” “slow journalism,” and “multi-platform immersive journalism.” At root, the addition of “literary” to “journalism” might be seen to be dignifying the latter and giving it a modicum of cultural class. Moreover, while the media exert substantial political, ideological, and cultural power in societies, journalism occupies a precarious position within literary culture and the academy. Journalism and literature are often seen as two separate spheres: the first one “low,” the other “high.” And this attitude is reflected among men and women of letters (who often look down on their journalism) and inside the academy (where the study of the journalism has long been marginalized). The seminal moment for the launching of literary journalism as a subject in higher education was the publication in 1973 of The New Journalism , edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. Bringing together the work of 22 literary journalists, Wolfe pronounced the birth of a distinctly new kind of “powerful” reportage in 1960s America that drew its main techniques from the realist novels of Fielding, Smollett, Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol. By the 1980s and 1990s, the study of literary journalism was growing (mainly in the United States and United Kingdom), with some courses opening at universities. In recent years, literary journalism studies have internationalized revealing their historic roots in many societies while another emphasis has been on the work of women writers. Immersive journalism, in which the reporter is embedded with a particular individual, group, community, military unit (or similar) has long been a feature of literary journalism. In recent years it has been redefined as “slow journalism”: the “slowness” allowing for extra attention to the aesthetic, writerly, and experimental aspects of reportage for the journalist and media consumer. And perhaps paradoxically in this age of Twitter and soundbite trivia, long-form/long-read formats (in print and online) have emerged alongside the slow journalism trend. The future for literary journalism is, then, full of challenges: some critics argue that one solution to the definitional wrangles would be to consider all journalism as worthy of critical attention as literature . Most analysis of literary journalism is keen to stress the quality of the techniques deployed, yet greater stress could be placed on the political economy of the media and a consideration of ideological bias. Indeed, while most of the study of literary journalism to date has focused on the corporate media, the future could see more studies of partisan, progressive, alternative media.

• literary journalism
• narrative journalism
• immersive journalism
• academic discipline
• American tradition
• women writers
• slow journalism
• journalism studies

You do not currently have access to this article

Please login to access the full content.

Access to the full content requires a subscription

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 26 April 2024

• Cookie Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility
• [66.249.64.20|185.66.14.236]
• 185.66.14.236

Character limit 500 /500

• Fellowships

Exploring the art and craft of story

Narrative News

December 22, 2017, want to read some of the best literary journalism of 2017 we’ve got you covered, a weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure.

Kari Howard

From "Seven Days of Heroin": Terri was arrested on outstanding warrants; she was roused as she slept with her boyfriend under an overpass. Liz Dufour/The Cincinnati Enquirer

Yes, it’s the time of year to look back on the good things that happened this year (and try to forget the bad, if only for a little while). First off: John McPhee wrote a book that gives lesser beings like us tips about the writing process. That has to be worth at least a little smile, right? And I’m also grateful for some wonderful literary journalism this year, including four of the stories listed below in the “What I’m reading online” category. Finally, it’s been a delight to be editing Storyboard this year — dream job, indeed. Here’s to more dreams coming true in 2018 for all of us.

The cover story that materialized from Tullis' pitch.

The Pitch: a veteran freelancer on pitching The New York Times Magazine and more. This is another installment of Katia Savchuk’s great (and useful) series called “The Pitch.” Here she talks to freelancer Paul Tullis, who has been on both sides of the pitching equation, as an editor and a reporter. From the reporter’s side, he says, “I have sold narrative feature pitches in two sentences, but it’s rare. It makes sense to say if you can’t get your idea across in three paragraphs, you need to work on your idea. That said, if it’s an obscure topic, you might need a paragraph just of background to let people know it’s actually important.”

The soundtrack: “Both Sides Now,” by Kate Wolf. This is my favorite version of the Joni Mitchell song. Her deeper voice and impeccable timing bring a new richness to a familiar song. (If you don’t know her version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” it’s a revelation.)

One Great Sentence

“We were taken to the ‘Oh, My God, Corner,’ a position near the escalator. People arriving see the long line and say “Oh, my God!” and it’s an elf’s job to calm them down and explain that it will take no longer than an hour to see Santa.”

David Sedaris, “SantaLand Diaries” from “Holidays on Ice.” Read why we think it’s great.

The author John McPhee Department of Communications, Princeton University

“Draft No. 4”: the legendary John McPhee’s “master class in the writer’s craft.” Former Los Angeles Times Book Editor David Ulin has written a lovely essay on why this book by one of the gods of literary journalism is so good. In it, he includes some great lessons from McPhee, like this one: “A piece of writing,” he insists, “has to start somewhere, go somewhere, and sit down when it gets there. You do that by building what you hope is an unarguable structure. Beginning, middle, end.” And this: “What, he began to wonder, about a double profile, involving two figures who are connected but at the same time distinct? ‘In the resonance between the two sides, added dimension might develop. Maybe I would twice meet myself coming the other way. Or four times. Who could tell what might happen? In any case, one plus one should add up to more than two.'”

The soundtrack: “Suspended from Class,” by Camera Obscura. This is one of my favorite underrated bands. This song popped into my head after I read the publisher’s line about “a master class in the writer’s craft.” The song begins with this line, “You’re such a beautiful writer/That’s not all you are.” But my favorite line is from the chorus: “I should be suspended from class/I don’t know my elbow from my ass.”

What I’m reading online: I spent some time this month looking back on some top-notch work of the past 12 months. I’m going to list three of my favorites that we spotlighted on Storyboard, and one I wish we had.

How to Get Away With Murder in Small Town India, by Ellen Barry. I absolutely loved this story, the final piece The New York Times correspondent did as she left New Delhi for London. The writing is spectacular, using first person to unparalleled effect. In this Annotation Tuesday!, Barry says, “If you are using the first person, you almost by necessity need to be a character. Being a rich white person in rural India, or any place that poor, is a strange, uncomfortable feeling much of the time. So I suppose I wanted to explore that.”

The Detective of Northern Oddities, by Christopher Solomon. This piece for Outside magazine is another story that features standout writing (and humor) to draw readers into a serious subject, this time climate change and the sinister effects it may be having on wildlife. It’s about a scientist in Alaska who spends her days “slicing open furry dead animals,” and it features what may be my favorite line in a story this year: “A big pair of garden shears sat on the counter, as foreboding as Chekhov’s gun on the mantel.” Read Allison Eck’s annotation for the inside scoop on how he wrote and reported the story.

Seven Days of Heroin, by the Cincinnati Enquirer staff. I’m still blown away by both the concept and execution of this piece. Sixty staffers reported even the tiniest details of one week in the opioid crisis in Cincinnati, and in a stunning feat of editing, a rich narrative emerged. This shows you don’t have to be one of the “big” newspapers to do standout work on a national issue; you just need a great idea and the commitment to use a large portion of your staff in a show of reporting force. In our Notable Narrative, lead reporter Terry DeMio says, ‘We just wanted to show people: This is what a heroin epidemic looks like.”

A Most American Terrorist: the Making of Dylann Roof, by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. This tremendous profile of the young man who killed nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, S.C., features one of the best ledes of the year: “Sitting beside the church, drinking from a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, he thought he had to go in and shoot them.” The writing (and the reporting) is stellar throughout the story, though, as Ghansah follows a trail leading back from that terrible moment to his childhood. This is an example, like Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” where a reporter captures the essence of a person without interviewing him.

If you want to chat about storytelling (or music), I’m Storyboard editor Kari Howard, and you can reach me at [email protected] . Or you can find me at @karihow on Twitter.

Most popular articles from Nieman Storyboard

The intersection of “breaking bad,” marty robbins and “el paso”, “telling true stories: is it worth it” by tom junod, interview with ed kashi: taking it beyond the media.

$ 545.00

Open to All Text-Based

$ 545.00 Enroll Now

Literary essays are nothing like the essays we were forced to write in school. Lyrical, exploratory, wide-ranging, often funny, often devastating, the literary essay uses everything in the writer’s toolbox to create something as beautiful and memorable as the best fiction and poetry. In this six-week course, we’ll examine the craft of literary essays—what makes the most moving essays work, and how we can incorporate their techniques into our own pieces.

We’ll explore published examples covering a range of subjects and styles, from conventional literary essays to literary journalism to hybrid/experimental forms like lyric essays, flash nonfiction, and essays in verse. Meanwhile, we’ll write and workshop new essays incorporating their techniques and making them our own.

By the end of this brief course, students will:

• Have read a broad selection of literary essays from very different writers.
• Have a strong sense of what you like in a literary essay—what do you want your essays to do?
• Have written, workshopped, and revised original literary essays.

Above all, we’ll have fun along the way—if writing literary essays weren’t a pleasure, nobody would do it!

Course Outline:

Week 1. the essay as exploration..

In our first week together, we’ll look at the essay as a means of exploration. In what unique ways does the form allow us to explore a subject? How does that exploratory quality transfer to the page? How do the writer and reader of the essay explore together? How does the essay explore, confront, explain, or communicate.

Week 2. The Writer’s Toolbox: Building Strong Sentences.

In this craft intensive unit, we’ll look at the key building block of any essay: the sentence. Drawing on a wide range of successful examples, we’ll take a deep dive into sentence structure, rhythm, sound, pacing, and more. We’ll also do a rapid survey of the key tools in the writer’s kit—metaphor, imagery, symbolism, etc.

Week 3. Literary Journalism.

In this unit, we’ll look at one popular subspecies of the literary essay: literary journalism. Literary journalism goes beyond “who, what, where and when” of ordinary journalism to give a more detailed, richer, and more vivid picture of real events. We’ll look at some classic examples and explore how and why they work.

Week 4. Revision, Part 1.

Choose one of the essays submitted so far, and post a new revised version for workshop. 

Week 5. Hybrid Forms: The Lyric Essay and the Essayistic Lyric.

In this week, we’ll look at hybrid/experimental examples of the literary essay. We’ll look first at the lyric essay (a genre that combines the form, structure, and associative qualities of the essay with the intense lyricism of poetry). Next, we’ll look at the flipside: poems that incorporate the style and structure of the essay.

Week 6. Contents under Pressure: The Very Short Essay.

Very short fiction, also known as flash fiction, has exploded in popularity in recent years. These tiny stories (sometimes as small as 100 words, and never more than 1000) compress fiction to its smallest, most essential core. By the same token, flash nonfiction or the very short essay strives to do the full work of an essay in the smallest possible space. This week, we’ll explore this increasingly influential form of essay.

Week 7. How the Story Is Told.

This week we’ll explore the ways in which essayists use narrative structure to drive the essay forward. We’ll also look at the ways in which the essayist enters into the essay, that is, the way that the essay allows writers unique ways to learn about and grapple with themselves. The examples we’ll look at blend literary journalism, memoir, and more to create moving portraits of the authors as well as their subjects.

Week 8. Revision, Part 2. 

Student feedback for jonathan j.g. mcclure:.

I've taken many classes with Writers.com and Jonathan's class was one of the best. The material was interesting, his feedback always very thorough and to the point. It was obvious that he put a lot of thought, time and effort into making this class satisfying and engaging. Ariela L Zucker

The Literary Essay course was delightful. Jonathan's knowledge, getting to the point with his comments, treating his students with attention and respect, and his sense of humor are at the core of his tutoring gift. The week on building strong sentences was of an absolutely revelatory quality for me. I've had a great writing experience with Jonathan again and wish to take the next step if possible. Please share this info with him. Joanna Kania

The course material was excellent. It kept me engaged and learning throughout. This class was so helpful because it focused not just on individual poems but on seeing work (your own and others') in terms of a collection. The class work and generous attention of the teacher were invaluable. I wish there were more classes like this!  Mary Paulson

The course readings were excellent - inspiring and varied, often captivating and sometimes bizarre. Between this class and the other I took with Jonathan (The Literary Essay) I feel like I have an infinitely better grasp on what’s going on in the world of contemporary literature, plus types of writings that were developed and built upon in the past. The written lectures were engaging and very readable; they made the assignments clear and definitely enriched my understanding of the readings and their relevance to the unit at hand.

I can’t overstate how insightful and useful Jonathan’s comments were. He always went very in-depth and gave very nuanced feedback. I actually downloaded all of his comments to everybody in the class so I can use them to help with my own writing. Jonathan clearly saw what we were trying to do with each of our pieces and helped bridge the gap between what was in our heads and what was actually being conveyed to the reader. He was always kind and encouraging but didn’t hold back on the constructive criticism (on both the macro and micro level), which is why I was happy to pay for a second course; I'm involved in a writing group with friends but we all tend to mutually shy away from criticism.  Laura DeFazio

I thought the teacher was talented--what a great writer!--polite, well meaning, intelligent and diligent. The lectures were extremely well written and put together, and the exercises varied and interesting. I can't find any fault at all!  Becky Mitchell

This was the best class I've taken! Jonathan gave us detailed lessons, packed with useful information. He gave us assignments designed to increase our understanding and they did...Jonathan was generous with his feedback, pointing out both the strengths of our work and opportunities to strengthen it. He always explained why something wasn't working or could be improved and gave examples of how. His suggestions really helped me to see how I could improve, not just that particular poem, but others as well. He was encouraging as well as constructive. He was excellent in every regard. Just want to thank you for this great learning experience. Barbara Ireland

Jonathan was an amazing teacher. The level of critique he offered was way beyond what I thought I’d get in an online course. He was a close and careful reader and his comments on our work were sensitive and insightful. GREAT lectures, clear, concise but in depth, with fantastic poetic examples. Yes, very happy. Chloe Coventry

This course has been fabulous: each week a great lecture with a twist, splendid sample of poems from known and less known poets, supportive and constructive tutorial feedback, phenomenal language. I'm still savoring the course contents. I appreciate your sense of humor, too ;). I've loved every minute spent here. I'm definitely taking part two of this course (or its sequel). In the meantime, I'll read your poems (I wish you'd shared more of them during the course). Looking forward to writing with Writers.com again.  Joanna Kania

I find you guys run great classes and this was no exception! I felt Jonathan was very thoughtful in setting up the material. He was engaged, thorough, and responded in a timely fashion. Andrea Sauder

Lovely! Very well structured and fascinating course. Very! Felt that [Jonathan] knew his stuff and felt safe with the commentary. Maren Bodenstein

“Jonathan’s feedback on each piece was thoughtful, objective, and helped immensely in my revision process. This is one of the best classes I’ve taken at Writers.com.” —Jill Thompson

About Jonathan J.G. McClure

Jonathan “J.G.” McClure holds an MFA from the University of California – Irvine. His poetry and prose appear widely, including in Best New Poets, Gettysburg Review, Green Mountains Review,  and  The Pinch , among others. He is the author of the poetry collection  The Fire Lit & Nearing  (Indolent Books 2018) and the translator of  Swimming  (Valparaíso Edicciones 2019). His work has been nominated for awards and honors including the Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays, and Best of the Net. He is a book reviewer for several journals including  Colorado Review  and  Rain Taxi,  and the former Craft Essay Editor and Assistant Poetry Editor of  Cleaver Magazine.

A former instructor at UC-Irvine, Jonathan has taught a variety of courses in poetry and prose and edited literary magazines for four years. Today, he works as a writing consultant in Washington, D.C., where he is an active member of the city’s literary community.

Jonathan's Courses

Crafting Poems in Form: Rhyme, Meter, Fixed Forms, and More *Private Class | The Literary Essay *Private Class | The Craft of Poetry The Craft of Poetry The Literary Essay

• Name * First Last
• Classes You're Interested In

Stories, Students, and Social Justice: Literary Journalism as a Teaching Tool for Change

• First Online: 05 August 2022

Cite this chapter

• Mitzi Lewis 3 &
• Jeffrey C. Neely 4  

181 Accesses

Scholars have long noted the connection between literary journalism and social change. Whitt states that “literary journalism is at root a political and social movement” in which readers and practitioners hold the belief that a transparent personal voice, coupled with thoroughly researched commentary, may be a more trustworthy source of truth-telling than corporate mainstream conceptions of “objectivity.” Moreover, Whitt argues that the teaching of literary journalism can help awaken a social consciousness in students. To explore this phenomenon, we examine literary journalism post-secondary instruction—either as a critical exercise or as praxis—through the lens of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. We seek to understand opportunities and limitations that literary journalism presents in promoting social justice causes and how the genre may foster students’ understanding of social justice through Mezirow’s four stages of meaning. In this way we strive to add to discussion underpinning other contributions to this volume: if and how literary journalism might help deliver facts of lives of the marginalized, facilitate an empathic engagement with those lives, and create movement toward improving those lives.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Jan Whitt, “Awakening a Social Conscience: The Study of Novels in Journalism Education.” Asia Pacific Media Educator 18 (2007): 88.

Barbara Applebaum, “Is Teaching for Social Justice a Liberal Bias?” Teachers College Record 111, no. 2 (February 2009): 376.

Ruksana Osman, Emmanuel Ojo and David J. Hornsby. “Transforming Higher Education Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 28, no. 4 (May-June 2018): 395.

Lukas H. Meyer and Pranay Sanklecha. “Philosophy of Justice: Extending Liberal Justice in Space and Time,” in Handbook of Social Justice Theory and Research , eds. Clara Sabbagh and Manfred Schmidt (New York: Springer, 2016), 29.

Omiunota Nelly Ukpokodu. “Realizing Transformative Learning and Social Justice Education: Unpacking Teacher Education Practice,” in Social Justice and Transformative Learning: Culture and Identity in the United States and South Africa , eds. Saundra M. Tomlinson-Clarke and Darren L. Clarke (New York: Routledge, 2016), 137.

Jack Mezirow. “Transformative Learning Theory,” in Contemporary Theories of Learning , ed. Knud Illeris (New York: Routledge, 2018), 92.

Mezirow, 93.

Mezirow, 94; Donald C. Heilman and Darren L. Clarke. “Transformative Learning Theory: Perspectives on Nelson Mandela and Application for US Learners in South Africa,” in Social Justice and Transformative Learning , eds. S. Saundra M. Tomlinson-Clarke and Darren L. Clarke (New York: Routledge, 2016), 42.

Mezirow, 64.

Michael Blanding, “Where Does Journalism End and Activism End and Activism Begin?” Nieman Reports 73, no. 1 (Winter 2019): 8.

Blanding, 8.

Caroline Fisher, “The Advocacy Continuum: Towards a Theory of Advocacy in Journalism.” Journalism 17, no. 6 (August 2016): 712, 723.

Fisher, 723.

Stephen J.A. Ward. “Journalism Ethics,” in The Handbook of Journalism Studies , eds. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch (New York: Routledge, 2009), 301–302.

Elizabeth S. Bird and Robert W. Dardenne. “Rethinking News and Myth as Storytelling,” in The Handbook of Journalism Studies , eds. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch (New York: Routledge, 2009), 214.

Richard L. Kaplan, “The News About New Institutionalism: Journalism’s Ethic of Objectivity and Its Political Origins,” Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006): 173.

Linda Jean Kenix, “Culture as Constitutive: An Exploration of Audience and Journalist Perceptions of Journalism in Samoa,” Communication, Culture & Critique 8, no. 1 (2015): 38.

Kai Hafez, “Journalism Ethics Revisited: A Comparison of Ethics Codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia,” Political Communication 19, no. 2 (2002): 225.

Jacob L. Nelson and Dan A. Lewis, “Training Social Justice Journalists: A Case Study,” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 70, no. 4 (2015): 396.

The exact language on the questionnaire was (1) “How comfortable do you feel with literary/long form/narrative journalists assuming an explicit role as activists or advocates for social justice issues in their work?” and (2) “How comfortable do your students feel with literary/long form/narrative journalists assuming an explicit role as activists or advocates for social justice issues in their work?”

The researchers tested for the homogeneity of variance, with results supporting the assumption of homogenous variance (i.e., no statistically significant differences in variance among groups). Additionally, the researchers ran both parametric and non-parametric analysis (chi-squared test) on the ordinal data. Both tests revealed significant differences between instructors who teach literary journalism as practice and those who teach literary journalism as academic study for the questions addressing students’ use of imagination to redefine social issues and their level of comfort with literary journalists serving as advocates. A bivariate correlation (Pearson) test indicated that results for these questions were correlated (p = 0.02).

Rob W. Holland, Bas Verplanken and Ad Van Knippenberg, “On the Nature of Attitude–Behavior Relations: The Strong Guide, the Weak Follow.” European Journal of Social Psychology 32, no. 6 (2002): 869–876.

Bibliography

Applebaum, Barbara. “Is Teaching for Social Justice a Liberal Bias?” Teachers College Record 111, no. 2 (February 2009): 376-408.

Google Scholar  

Bell, Lee Anne. “Theoretical Foundations for Social Justice Education.” In Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice , edited by Maurianne Adams and Lee Anne Bell with Diane J. Goodman and Khyati Y. Joshipp, 25-38. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Bird, S. Elizabeth, and Robert W. Dardenne. “Rethinking News and Myth as Storytelling.” In The Handbook of Journalism Studies , edited by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch, 205-217. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Blanding, Michael. “Where Does Journalism End and Activism Begin?” Nieman Reports 73, no. 1 (Winter 2019): 6-15.

Fisher, Caroline. “The Advocacy Continuum: Towards a Theory of Advocacy in Journalism.” Journalism 17, no. 6 (August): 711-726.

Hafez, Kai. “Journalism Ethics Revisited: A Comparison of Ethics Codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia.” Political Communication 19, no. 2 (2002): 225-250.

Heilman, Donald C., and Darren L. Clarke. “Transformative learning theory: Perspectives on Nelson Mandela and application for US learners in South Africa.” In Social Justice and Transformative Learning , edited by Saundra M. Tomlinson-Clarke and Darren L. Clarke, 40-57. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Holland, Rob W., Bas Verplanken, and Ad Van Knippenberg, “On the Nature of Attitude–Behavior Relations: The Strong Guide, the Weak Follow.” European Journal of Social Psychology 32, no. 6 (2002): 869-876.

Kaplan, Richard L. “The News About New Institutionalism: Journalism’s Ethic of Objectivity and Its Political Origins.” Political Communication 23, no. 2 (2006): 173-185.

Article   Google Scholar  

Kenix, Linda Jean. “Culture as Constitutive: An Exploration of Audience and Journalist Perceptions of Journalism in Samoa.” Communication, Culture & Critique 8, no. 1 (2015): 37-54.

Meyer, Lukas H., and Pranay Sanklecha. “Philosophy of Justice: Extending Liberal Justice in Space and Time.” In Handbook of Social Justice Theory and Research , edited by Clara Sabbagh and Manfred Schmidt, 15-35. New York: Springer, 2016.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Mezirow, Jack. “Transformative learning theory.” In Contemporary Theories of Learning , edited by Knud Illeris, 114-128. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Miller, John P., and Wayne Seller. Curriculum Perspectives and Practice . New York: Longman Inc., 1985.

Nelson, Jacob L. and Dan A. Lewis. “Training Social Justice Journalists: A Case Study.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 70, no. 4 (2015): 394-406.

Osman, Ruksana, Emmanuel Ojo, and David J. Hornsby. “Transforming Higher Education Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy.” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 28, no. 4 (May-June 2018): 393-396.

Thier, Kathryn. “Opportunities and Challenges for Initial Implementation of Solutions Journalism Coursework.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 71, no. 3 (September): 329–343.

Ukpokodu, Omiunota N. “Realizing Transformative Learning and Social Justice Education: Unpacking Teacher Education Practice.” In Social Justice and Transformative Learning: Culture and Identity in the United States and South Africa , edited by Saundra M. Tomlinson-Clarke and Darren L. Clarke, 113-142. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Ward, Stephen J.A. “Journalism Ethics.” In The Handbook of Journalism Studies , edited by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch, 295-309. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Whitt, Jan. “Awakening a Social Conscience: The Study of Novels in Journalism Education.” Asia Pacific Media Educator 18 (2007): 85-100.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX, USA

Mitzi Lewis

The University of Tampa, Tampa, FL, USA

Jeffrey C. Neely

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mitzi Lewis or Jeffrey C. Neely .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

Robert Alexander

Faculty of Arts Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL), Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Willa McDonald

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Lewis, M., Neely, J.C. (2022). Stories, Students, and Social Justice: Literary Journalism as a Teaching Tool for Change. In: Alexander, R., McDonald, W. (eds) Literary Journalism and Social Justice . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89420-7_19

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89420-7_19

Published : 05 August 2022

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-89419-1

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-89420-7

eBook Packages : Literature, Cultural and Media Studies Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

TRY OUR FREE APP

Write your book in Reedsy Studio. Try the beloved writing app for free today.

Craft your masterpiece in Reedsy Studio

Plan, write, edit, and format your book in our free app made for authors.

Guides • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Feb 20, 2023

Creative Nonfiction: How to Spin Facts into Narrative Gold

Creative nonfiction is a genre of creative writing that approaches factual information in a literary way. This type of writing applies techniques drawn from literary fiction and poetry to material that might be at home in a magazine or textbook, combining the craftsmanship of a novel with the rigor of journalism. 

Here are some popular examples of creative nonfiction:

• The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
• Intimations by Zadie Smith
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Creative nonfiction is not limited to novel-length writing, of course. Popular radio shows and podcasts like WBEZ’s This American Life or Sarah Koenig’s Serial also explore audio essays and documentary with a narrative approach, while personal essays like Nora Ephron’s A Few Words About Breasts and Mariama Lockington’s What A Black Woman Wishes Her Adoptive White Parents Knew also present fact with fiction-esque flair.

Writing short personal essays can be a great entry point to writing creative nonfiction. Think about a topic you would like to explore, perhaps borrowing from your own life, or a universal experience. Journal freely for five to ten minutes about the subject, and see what direction your creativity takes you in. These kinds of exercises will help you begin to approach reality in a more free flowing, literary way — a muscle you can use to build up to longer pieces of creative nonfiction.

If you think you’d like to bring your writerly prowess to nonfiction, here are our top tips for creating compelling creative nonfiction that’s as readable as a novel, but as illuminating as a scholarly article.

Write a memoir focused on a singular experience

Humans love reading about other people’s lives — like first-person memoirs, which allow you to get inside another person’s mind and learn from their wisdom. Unlike autobiographies, memoirs can focus on a single experience or theme instead of chronicling the writers’ life from birth onward.

For that reason, memoirs tend to focus on one core theme and—at least the best ones—present a clear narrative arc, like you would expect from a novel. This can be achieved by selecting a singular story from your life; a formative experience, or period of time, which is self-contained and can be marked by a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

When writing a memoir, you may also choose to share your experience in parallel with further research on this theme. By performing secondary research, you’re able to bring added weight to your anecdotal evidence, and demonstrate the ways your own experience is reflective (or perhaps unique from) the wider whole.

Example: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking , for example, interweaves the author’s experience of widowhood with sociological research on grief. Chronicling the year after her husband’s unexpected death, and the simultaneous health struggles of their daughter, The Year of Magical Thinking is a poignant personal story, layered with universal insight into what it means to lose someone you love. The result is the definitive exploration of bereavement — and a stellar example of creative nonfiction done well.

📚 Looking for more reading recommendations? Check out our list of the best memoirs of the last century .

Tip: What you cut out is just as important as what you keep

When writing a memoir that is focused around a singular theme, it’s important to be selective in what to include, and what to leave out. While broader details of your life may be helpful to provide context, remember to resist the impulse to include too much non-pertinent backstory. By only including what is most relevant, you are able to provide a more focused reader experience, and won’t leave readers guessing what the significance of certain non-essential anecdotes will be.

💡 For more memoir-planning tips, head over to our post on outlining memoirs .

Of course, writing a memoir isn’t the only form of creative nonfiction that lets you tap into your personal life — especially if there’s something more explicit you want to say about the world at large… which brings us onto our next section.

Pen a personal essay that has something bigger to say

Personal essays condense the first-person focus and intimacy of a memoir into a tighter package — tunneling down into a specific aspect of a theme or narrative strand within the author’s personal experience.

Often involving some element of journalistic research, personal essays can provide examples or relevant information that comes from outside the writer’s own experience. This can take the form of other people’s voices quoted in the essay, or facts and stats. By combining lived experiences with external material, personal essay writers can reach toward a bigger message, telling readers something about human behavior or society instead of just letting them know the writer better.

Example: The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison's widely acclaimed collection The Empathy Exams  tackles big questions (Why is pain so often performed? Can empathy be “bad”?) by grounding them in the personal. While Jamison draws from her own experiences, both as a medical actor who was paid to imitate pain, and as a sufferer of her own ailments, she also reaches broader points about the world we live in within each of her essays.

Whether she’s talking about the justice system or reality TV, Jamison writes with both vulnerability and poise, using her lived experience as a jumping-off point for exploring the nature of empathy itself.

Tip: Try to show change in how you feel about something

Including external perspectives, as we’ve just discussed above, will help shape your essay, making it meaningful to other people and giving your narrative an arc. 

Ultimately, you may be writing about yourself, but readers can read what they want into it. In a personal narrative, they’re looking for interesting insights or realizations they can apply to their own understanding of their lives or the world — so don’t lose sight of that. As the subject of the essay, you are not so much the topic as the vehicle for furthering a conversation.

Often, there are three clear stages in an essay:

• Initial state 
• Encounter with something external
• New, changed state, and conclusions

By bringing readers through this journey with you, you can guide them to new outlooks and demonstrate how your story is still relevant to them.

Had enough of writing about your own life? Let’s look at a form of creative nonfiction that allows you to get outside of yourself.

Tell a factual story as though it were a novel

The form of creative nonfiction that is perhaps closest to conventional nonfiction is literary journalism. Here, the stories are all fact, but they are presented with a creative flourish. While the stories being told might comfortably inhabit a newspaper or history book, they are presented with a sense of literary significance, and writers can make use of literary techniques and character-driven storytelling.

Unlike news reporters, literary journalists can make room for their own perspectives: immersing themselves in the very action they recount. Think of them as both characters and narrators — but every word they write is true. 

If you think literary journalism is up your street, think about the kinds of stories that capture your imagination the most, and what those stories have in common. Are they, at their core, character studies? Parables? An invitation to a new subculture you have never before experienced? Whatever piques your interest, immerse yourself.

Example: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

If you’re looking for an example of literary journalism that tells a great story, look no further than Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World , which sits at the intersection of food writing and popular science. Though it purports to offer a “plant’s-eye view of the world,” it’s as much about human desires as it is about the natural world.

Through the history of four different plants and human’s efforts to cultivate them, Pollan uses first-hand research as well as archival facts to explore how we attempt to domesticate nature for our own pleasure, and how these efforts can even have devastating consequences. Pollan is himself a character in the story, and makes what could be a remarkably dry topic accessible and engaging in the process.

Tip: Don’t pretend that you’re perfectly objective

You may have more room for your own perspective within literary journalism, but with this power comes great responsibility. Your responsibilities toward the reader remain the same as that of a journalist: you must, whenever possible, acknowledge your own biases or conflicts of interest, as well as any limitations on your research. 

Thankfully, the fact that literary journalism often involves a certain amount of immersion in the narrative — that is, the writer acknowledges their involvement in the process — you can touch on any potential biases explicitly, and make it clear that the story you’re telling, while true to what you experienced, is grounded in your own personal perspective.

Approach a famous name with a unique approach 

Biographies are the chronicle of a human life, from birth to the present or, sometimes, their demise. Often, fact is stranger than fiction, and there is no shortage of fascinating figures from history to discover. As such, a biographical approach to creative nonfiction will leave you spoilt for choice in terms of subject matter.

Because they’re not written by the subjects themselves (as memoirs are), biographical nonfiction requires careful research. If you plan to write one, do everything in your power to verify historical facts, and interview the subject’s family, friends, and acquaintances when possible. Despite the necessity for candor, you’re still welcome to approach biography in a literary way — a great creative biography is both truthful and beautifully written.

Example: American Prometheus  by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Alongside the need for you to present the truth is a duty to interpret that evidence with imagination, and present it in the form of a story. Demonstrating a novelist’s skill for plot and characterization, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus is a great example of creative nonfiction that develops a character right in front of the readers’ eyes.

American Prometheus follows J. Robert Oppenheimer from his bashful childhood to his role as the father of the atomic bomb, all the way to his later attempts to reckon with his violent legacy.

FREE COURSE

How to Develop Characters

In 10 days, learn to develop complex characters readers will love.

The biography tells a story that would fit comfortably in the pages of a tragic novel, but is grounded in historical research. Clocking in at a hefty 721 pages, American Prometheus distills an enormous volume of archival material, including letters, FBI files, and interviews into a remarkably readable volume. 

📚 For more examples of world-widening, eye-opening biographies, check out our list of the 30 best biographies of all time .

Tip: The good stuff lies in the mundane details

Biographers are expected to undertake academic-grade research before they put pen to paper. You will, of course, read any existing biographies on the person you’re writing about, and visit any archives containing relevant material. If you’re lucky, there’ll be people you can interview who knew your subject personally — but even if there aren’t, what’s going to make your biography stand out is paying attention to details, even if they seem mundane at first.

Of course, no one cares which brand of slippers a former US President wore — gossip is not what we’re talking about. But if you discover that they took a long, silent walk every single morning, that’s a granular detail you could include to give your readers a sense of the weight they carried every day. These smaller details add up to a realistic portrait of a living, breathing human being.

But creative nonfiction isn’t just writing about yourself or other people. Writing about art is also an art, as we’ll see below.

Put your favorite writers through the wringer with literary criticism

Literary criticism is often associated with dull, jargon-laden college dissertations — but it can be a wonderfully rewarding form that blurs the lines between academia and literature itself. When tackled by a deft writer, a literary critique can be just as engrossing as the books it analyzes.

Many of the sharpest literary critics are also poets, poetry editors , novelists, or short story writers, with first-hand awareness of literary techniques and the ability to express their insights with elegance and flair. Though literary criticism sounds highly theoretical, it can be profoundly intimate: you’re invited to share in someone’s experience as a reader or writer — just about the most private experience there is.

Example: The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Take The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, a seminal work approaching Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. Written as a conversation between two friends and academics, this brilliant book reads like an intellectual brainstorming session in a casual dining venue. Highly original, accessible, and not suffering from the morose gravitas academia is often associated with, this text is a fantastic example of creative nonfiction.

Tip: Remember to make your critiques creative

Literary criticism may be a serious undertaking, but unless you’re trying to pitch an academic journal, you’ll need to be mindful of academic jargon and convoluted sentence structure. Don’t forget that the point of popular literary criticism is to make ideas accessible to readers who aren’t necessarily academics, introducing them to new ways of looking at anything they read. 

If you’re not feeling confident, a professional nonfiction editor could help you confirm you’ve hit the right stylistic balance.

Give your book the help it deserves

The best editors, designers, and book marketers are on Reedsy. Sign up for free and meet them.

Learn how Reedsy can help you craft a beautiful book.

Is creative nonfiction looking a little bit clearer now? You can try your hand at the genre , or head to the next post in this guide and discover online classes where you can hone your skills at creative writing.

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

Bring your publishing dreams to life

The world's best editors, designers, and marketers are on Reedsy. Come meet them.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

• Write with Focus
• Read with Purpose
• Build your Community
• Discover Classes & Tools

Creative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism: What’s the Difference?

Mar 21, 2017 by Kayla Dean published in Writing

When I was in high school, my AP English teacher had our class read essays from names like Annie Dillard, David Foster Wallace, and Virginia Woolf. Back then, I didn’t know who any of these people were. I fell in love with “Death of a Moth” when I had to write a one-page analysis of it back in the day, but it wasn’t until my last year of college that I really understood what these authors were doing: writing creative nonfiction.

Yes, I know. You’ve heard the term already. Everyone on the blogosphere seems to have something to say about it. All the articles you click on now almost always have a storied way of telling you basic information. Writing advice blogs mention the word here or there. And have you seen that Creative Nonfiction magazine at Barnes & Noble (i.e., one of THE DREAM magazines for our genre)?

This is the beginning of another endeavor: I’m going to explain creative nonfiction, its genres, and how you can write your own creative nonfiction essays in this new column.

Don’t try to tell me that you aren’t interesting enough. That you haven’t been to Venice yet, and you don’t think that at twenty-something years old you could possibly have enough life experience to write anything interesting. You don’t feel like enough of a person yet. I am all of the above. Your experiences are enough to figure out this whole writing-about-real-experiences thing. First stop? Let’s break down the difference between creative nonfiction and literary journalism.

What Creative Nonfiction Actually Means

Creative nonfiction was coined by Lee Gutkind in the ‘90s. Simply stated, it’s “true stories, well told.” At least, that’s the slogan for his magazine. Gutkind has written several books on the genre, like this one , which is incredibly helpful for getting started in the genre. But if you’re looking for a more precise definition, creative nonfiction is essentially a narrative that deals in factual events. Meaning that whatever you write about, whether in essays or long-form, must be based in reality.

But there’s also something unique about this genre: it’s extremely important that you tell a narrative that has a literary language about it. In other words, you want your prose to be compulsively readable because it’s real life told in a human voice that strays away from the technical or academic.

Some consider creative nonfiction to be an umbrella term for a genre that includes things like personal essays, memoir, travel writing, and literary journalism. You probably know what the first three are, but why is the last one different from creative nonfiction?

How Literary Journalism Fits In

Some people say there isn’t a difference. But here’s my take: literary journalism is often rooted in heavy research. For example, a biologist could write about the problems they see in an endangered population of turtles in the Pacific. A journalist could write about their experiences reporting in the Middle East, exposing a problem they encountered while in the field. Both of these are real examples. But they aren’t necessarily based on the storyteller’s life so much as the facts that they uncover on their journey. A writer can use figurative language to weave a narrative, but they can’t just engage in solipsism for 300 pages.

Not that creative nonfiction allows this. However, there’s a bit more freedom in the way that a writer can arrange facts. Some writers have even gotten in trouble when readers discovered they hadn’t told the story exactly as it had happened. You don’t want to stir up controversy, but there is a freedom in how you collapse or expand events. You can even re-order them to fit a narrative arc.

How to Pick the Right Non-Fiction Genres

Some writers object to writing this way. You may even find that there are two different camps of writers who completely disagree with one another’s prose. This may seem divisive. But there may be another option.

Literary nonfiction is another term I’ve seen thrown around, but not as often as the first two. It usually operates as a blanket term for both creative nonfiction and literary journalism. This one combines the essence of both into a style that works in many contexts. For a literary nonfiction piece, you’d do a bit more research than for a piece that is creative nonfiction. The latter form does allow you to simply write about your life. You may fact check dates or places, but many writers of creative nonfiction write things as they remember them. Implicit in some writing is even a type of subjectivity because the experiences are so personal that they’re more difficult to really verify.

Maybe this feels a little confusing. But if you’re looking to write about your own life, you’ll likely fall in the creative nonfiction camp. If you want some great essays to read on just about anything, check out online publications like Ecotone, Longreads, Literary Hub, or The Millions. These are great places to start if you want to read some creative nonfiction ASAP. And, if you’re a personal essay person, check out these tips from The New York Times on writing great creative nonfiction.

Those essays you read in high school English class can be a great start for your first foray into creative nonfiction, but they’re just the beginning. The realm of nonfiction may feel intimidating, especially if you’re not sure you have a shocking tale to put into a memoir just yet. That’s the great thing about creative nonfiction: you really can write about just about anything. The best part? No sensationalism required.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

Enjoyed this article?

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

DIYMFA Social

Learn more »

Writer Fuel

Get email updates including a free diy mfa starter kit.

………………………….. This mini-course delivered via email gives you resources so you can jumpstart your personalized program. …………………………..

The Resources

New start here, writing resources.

Use these craft and creativity resources to Write with Focus.

…………………………..

Reading Resources

Discover the basics of Reading With Purpose.

Community Resources

Learn techniques to Build Your Community.

Free Journalism Essay Examples & Topics

A journalism essay is a type of paper that combines personal records and reports. Besides news and facts, it should contain a story. An angle that creates a unique narrative of the events you are describing is crucial. However, let’s start with the definition.

No matter how often people hear about journalism, they still might get confused about what it is. It is an act of informative writing about news stories. It can be digital and non-digital, print and non-print. Journalists strive to present information in an interesting way while staying true to the source.

If you have seen journalistic article examples, you know there are two types. News can cover “hard stories”, meaning world events and politics, and “softer stories” about celebrities, science, etc. Journalism as a profession is multidimensional in nature. It can include texts, photography, interviews, and more. Content varies between different categories, such as literary reportage and yellow journalism.

Here, our experts have combined tips about how to write a good journalistic essay. We gathered information that will be useful for starting research and completing it. Moreover, you will find journalism topic ideas. You can use them for inspiration or to practice. Finally, underneath the article you will discover some stellar journalistic essay examples written by other students.

How to Write a Journalistic Essay

In this section, you’ll find tips that can help you start writing. However, nothing is more vital than choosing an appropriate journalism essay topic beforehand.

Before picking the subject, ask yourself several questions:

• What themes do I want to explore?
• What will my story be about?
• What points do I want to make?
• What is my attitude towards the topic?

Answering these questions can allow you to improve your storytelling. What’s more, look for one that can allow you to write intimately. Personal touches and views will influence your paper immensely. With all that in mind, try our free topic generator to get more ideas.

To write an outstanding journalistic essay, you should try these tips:

• Gather facts and references first.

Collect all the information you may need for your paper. For a story in journalism, you may be required to interview people or visit a location. Most importantly, you’ll have to research online. Also, you can read stories written by other people on the Internet to gain a better perspective.

• Organize your ideas and arguments before writing.

A good story is always organized. The structure of a journalistic should represent an inverted pyramid. The most crucial facts appear on the top, less important details go further, and extra information stays on the bottom. You can reflect in your writing. Organize all your arguments before writing, sticking to a logical structure.

• Rely on storytelling.

The story should become the main focus of your work. The writing should serve it and grab the reader’s attention from the start. Think about storytelling techniques that can keep your reader interested till the very end.

• Work on your style and language.

Another essential technique to keep your work both logical and engaging is to write in short sentences. If you search for any journalistic writing examples, you’ll see that’s how journalists write. The main goal of your paper is to deliver a clear and strong message. So, working on your style is going to help you further this agenda.

21 Journalism Essay Topics

There are so many journalism topics you can write about, and it can sometimes be challenging to stick to one. If you are still unsure what to describe and explore in your paper, this section can help you make this choice.

Here are some original journalism topic ideas:

• The way race impacts the news in different states in the US.
• Super Bowl as a phenomenon is more important than the game.
• Why people refuse to believe in climate change.
• How have sports changed international politics?
• Is creative writing in high school an essential subject?
• How vital is transparency in broadcast journalism?
• Is media responsible for the Covid-19 crisis in the US?
• Journalism as a profession can help change the world.
• A privacy issue between British journalism and the royal family.
• Are social media and blogging the future of journalism?
• The role of religion and race in Hollywood.
• Why has the Chinese economy risen so much over the past decade?
• How can media help in battling poverty in developing countries?
• Can music be used as political propaganda?
• Connections between social media and depression.
• Should mobile phones be allowed in educational institutions?
• Has the Internet impacted the way how newspapers and articles are written?
• Should fake news be banned on social media?
• What are the biggest challenges of investigative journalism?
• Can reality television be viewed as a type of journalism?
• How can athletes impact social awareness?

Thank you for reading the article! We hope you will find it helpful. Do not hesitate to share this article or a list of journalism essay examples with others. Good luck with your assignment!

266 Best Essay Examples on Journalism

Role of ict in communication essay.

• Words: 1962

Traditional Media vs. New Media

• Words: 1393

Successful Interview Skills

Freedom of speech in social media essay.

• Words: 1799

Importance of Investigative Journalism in Today’s World

• Words: 2513

Social Media Replacing Traditional Journalism

• Words: 2390

Analysis of the Magazine Cover

• Words: 1064

David Foster Wallace on 9/11, as Seen from the Midwest

The global media is all about money and profit making.

• Words: 2071

The Efforts and Activities of the Paparazzi are Protected by the Freedom of the Press Clause of the Constitution

• Words: 2824

War and Violence Metaphors in Newspaper Headlines

Print publishing vs. digital media.

• Words: 1930

“Is True Friendship Dying Away?” and “The Price We Pay”

Ann patchett: my year of no shopping, media misrepresentation.

• Words: 1138

Research Project: Interview Analysis

Do people believe everything in the internet.

• Words: 1367

Ethics in Entertainment Journalism

• Words: 5591

Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self

• Words: 1253

Media Systems Dependency Theory

• Words: 2740

Plagiarism in the Real World: Jayson Blair and the New York Times

Journalism: media law and ethics.

• Words: 2625

The Elements of Journalism by Kovach & Rosenstiel

Media industry structural changes.

• Words: 3425

Print media is dead

• Words: 3601

News-Gathering and Production Practices

• Words: 1174

The Analysis of the Interview With Lizzo by Terry Gross

Journalism of the future and its improvements, ethical dilemma in journalism.

• Words: 1715

The Place and Importance of the Journalist in the War

• Words: 1009

Journalism Ethical Dilemma: Moral Discourse

• Words: 1108

Essential Foundations of the Public Relations

• Words: 3595

Video and Audio Interviews vs. Personal Interviews

• Words: 3829

Media Law and Ethics: Integrity in Media Broadcasting

• Words: 2257

“Dogs and Monsters” by Stanley Coren

Print media versus digital.

• Words: 2294

Impact of Online Social Media in Conflict Situations

• Words: 1388

Bennett News Model, Its Limitations and Challenges

• Words: 1114

Beyond Description: Writing Beneath the Surface

Internet impact on journalism: print vs. online newspapers.

• Words: 1127

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare’s Play of Dreaming

Unbelievable and fake news: how to convince people, media in development communication, “understanding media and culture” by jack lule.

• Words: 1749

Advertisement From Cosmopolitan

• Words: 1274

Journalism: Visual Media’s Role in News

Journalism’s journey: the key principles, regulatory measures in chinese journalism, evolving journalism ethics in digital era, journal editors’ role regarding social justice issues, ethics of journalism: s.a.d model analysis, diversity in journalism practice, journalism as industrial art: the problem of journalism history, a journalist crisis in slovakia.

• Words: 1446

Reem N.: An Iconic Versatile Journalist

Business-journalism relations: the present realities.

• Words: 1105

Journalistic Accountability and Financial Crash

• Words: 3705

Importance of Ethics in Journalism

• Words: 1144

The Role of Journalism in Exposing Scandals in Ireland

• Words: 2225

Why Google Was Wrong Firing James Damore

• Words: 1119

Article’s Comparison: Genre, Target Audience, and Motivation

Cbs news unemployment report and its future impression, broadcasting authority act 1960 for journalism in ireland.

• Words: 1173

Sade Moore, Journalist’s Biography Issues

Reflection of an interview with the mass media worker, grammar of “digging deeper” article by arnold, alysia steele about interviewing, accident reporting and absence of humanity in media, writing methods in by zinczenko’s article “don’t blame the eater”, the us stand-up commediane williiam “bill” maher jr..

• Words: 3207

Campaigning Journalism – Facts or Specific Interests

• Words: 1093

Nicholas Carr’s Article: Position Statement

• Words: 1385

Kara Miller: Has COVID Made Us Too Clean?

Online vs. print journalism: what is more beneficial, different types of interview, newspaper press apogee in the early 20th century.

• Words: 1913

“The Times Answers Spitzer Scandal Questions” and “Ashley Alexandra Dupree”

• Words: 1676

Critiquing Editorials in The Olympian and Tribune Papers

• Words: 1210

Volcanic Eruption in the “Threatened” Footage

Interview with a financier, the ethics of photo and video journalism, law, media and communication.

• Words: 2845

Financial Interview by Alexander Morrisey

Biases and sources in newspaper articles about the coronavirus, good riddance to the media dinosaurs, news channel’s priorities: fox news special report, designing an influential interview.

• Words: 2591

Interview With Harib Alsheihi

• Words: 1346

US Attorney’s Office Press Release on Birmingham Crimes

The publications on irrodl: review, blog response: developing different kinds of narratives, business knowledge management about journal ranking and it conferences, pestel review of canvas magazine, service encounter: customers interview, ‘the beach of dead whales’ by tatalo alamu: a response to editorial, visual rhetoric: the iraq war and torture of abu ghraib prisoners.

• Words: 1097

Journalism. Commercial Pressures vs. Fourth Estate Model

• Words: 1949

Journalism. Woman Assaulted by Neighbor Dies

Fabricating facts in a daily newspaper, past newspaper articles analysis: the new york times.

• Words: 1126

Journalism: News Access and Source Power

• Words: 2858

The Diversity of Human Experience: An Interview

Assessing the newsworthiness of homicide events, newspapers: commercialism and information.

• Words: 1547

Printed Publications’ Response to Online News

• Words: 2046

“Love Makes You Real” by Gardner and Knowles

• Words: 1535

Persuasive Argument About Journalistic Ethics

Dan rather’s involvement in the “dead air” event, the role of journalists and public relations professionals in information sphere.

• Words: 1625

The Interview With the Manager of Motorola Inc.

Media and communication in journalism firms.

• Words: 1124

MillerCoors Saves While Going Green

The use of reliable sources is crucial for journalism, how do journalists stay honest and not lose confidence, reporter’s privilege controversy.

• Words: 2237

Journalism. Australian Broadcasting Corporation

• Words: 2069

Time Out Group Limited: Research About Magazine

• Words: 1753

The Breakdown of Paparazzi Work

• Words: 1654

William Randolph Hearst’s Personal, Professional and Political Life

• Words: 1082

Quality of the News Analysis

• Ethics & Leadership
• Fact-Checking
• Media Literacy
• The Craig Newmark Center
• Reporting & Editing
• Ethics & Trust
• Tech & Tools
• Business & Work
• Educators & Students
• Training Catalog
• Custom Teaching
• For ACES Members
• All Categories
• Broadcast & Visual Journalism
• Fact-Checking & Media Literacy
• In-newsroom
• Memphis, Tenn.
• Minneapolis, Minn.
• St. Petersburg, Fla.
• Washington, D.C.
• Poynter ACES Introductory Certificate in Editing
• Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing
• Ethics & Trust Articles
• Get Ethics Advice
• Fact-Checking Articles
• International Fact-Checking Day
• Teen Fact-Checking Network
• International
• Media Literacy Training
• MediaWise Resources
• Ambassadors
• MediaWise in the News

Support responsible news and fact-based information today!

• Newsletters

Opinion | NPR suspends an editor for his essay blasting … NPR

The firestorm caused by uri berliner’s critical essay in the free press continues to rage.

When a senior editor at NPR recently wrote a 3,500-word essay for another outlet, blasting where he works and saying that NPR had “lost America’s trust,” my first thought, quite frankly, was, “ … and he still works there?”

Well, it was learned on Tuesday that the editor in question, Uri Berliner, is currently serving a five-day suspension without pay. NPR media writer David Folkenflik reported the suspension began last week. Folkenflik wrote, “In presenting Berliner’s suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a ‘final warning,’ saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR’s policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR’s newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.”

Berliner, who has been at NPR for 25 years, wrote his scathing essay for the online news site The Free Press, a publication on Substack. Folkenflik described The Free Press as a “site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal.”

The suspension does not mean the firestorm created by Berliner’s essay has been suppressed. Folkenflik wrote, “Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner’s essay for the online news site The Free Press. It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network’s coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.”

The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin wrote , “After Mr. Berliner’s essay was published, NPR’s new chief executive, Katherine Maher, came under renewed scrutiny as conservative activists resurfaced a series of years-old social media posts criticizing former President Donald J. Trump and embracing progressive causes. One of the activists, Christopher Rufo, has pressured media organizations into covering controversies involving influential figures, such as the plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, the former Harvard president.”

Maher was not at NPR at the time of her posts and, furthermore, the CEO has no involvement in editorial decisions at the network.

But Berliner told Folkenflik in an interview on Monday, “We’re looking for a leader right now who’s going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about. And this seems to be the opposite of that.”

In a statement earlier this week, Maher said, “In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen. What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests.”

As far as Berliner’s essay, many, particularly inside NPR, are pushing back against his various assertions, including that NPR has a liberal bias.

Mullin wrote for the Times, “Several NPR employees have urged the network’s leaders to more forcefully renounce Mr. Berliner’s claims in his essay. Edith Chapin, NPR’s top editor, said in a statement last week that managers ‘strongly disagree with Uri’s assessment of the quality of our journalism,’ adding that the network was ‘proud to stand behind’ its work.”

Tony Cavin, NPR’s managing editor for standards and practices, pushed back against specific claims made by Berliner and told the Times, “To somehow think that we were driven by politics is both wrong and unfair.”

NPR TV critic Eric Deggans tweeted , “Many things wrong w/terrible Berliner column on NPR, including not observing basic fairness. Didn’t seek comment from NPR before publishing. Didn’t mention many things which could detract from his conclusions. Set up staffers of color as scapegoats.”

So what happens now? Will Berliner be in further trouble for criticizing the CEO in an interview with Folkenflik, his NPR colleague?

Berliner told Folkenflik, “Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think.”

I urge you to check out Folkenflik’s piece for all the details. And, by the way, kudos to Folkenflik for his strong reporting on his own newsroom.

CNN’s response

In Tuesday’s newsletter , I wrote how “King Charles” — the limited series featuring Gayle King and Charles Barkley — has ended after 14 shows. I wrote that the network had “pulled the plug” on the show.

CNN said that description was inaccurate and that I was wrong in framing it the way I did.

While I did say that CNN announced from the beginning that the show was a limited series, I also wrote that the show reached its ending “a little ahead of time.” The network, however, said it was clear all along that the show was scheduled to end in the spring, that it is spring right now, and the show was not canceled early.

A CNN spokesperson told me, “‘King Charles’ has come to the end of its limited run, as we announced when it launched last fall that it would run through spring. The show was a great addition to CNN’s lineup, with the youngest, most affluent, and most diverse P2+ audience in its cable news time period and brought new audiences to CNN. It’s inaccurate to report that the show was canceled as it went through its full run and duration of the limited series. We hope to work with both of these incredible talents in the future as they balance their very busy schedules.”

With the NBA playoffs about to begin, Barkley is about to head into extra duty at his main job as studio analyst for TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”

The show’s average viewership was under a half million and lagged behind competitors Fox News and MSNBC, but CNN said it was pleased that the King-Barkley broadcast brought new audiences to CNN. It pointed to this statistic from Nielsen via Npower that said 43% of the “King Charles” audience was nonwhite, compared to 7% for Fox News and 27% for MSNBC during that Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern hour.

Smartmatic and OAN settle suit

Smartmatic, the voting technology company, and One America News, the far-right TV network, have settled their lawsuit. Smartmatic was suing OAN, claiming the network lied that the company rigged the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden and against Donald Trump.

Neither side disclosed the terms of the settlement.

Smartmatic still has pending lawsuits against Fox News and Newsmax. And OAN is still facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. That’s the company that Fox News settled with out of court a year ago by agreeing to pay Dominion a whopping $787.5 million.

Missing at the Masters

According to Sports TV Ratings , Sunday’s final round of The Masters golf tournament on CBS averaged 9.58 million viewers, which was down 20% from last year’s final round, which averaged 12.05 million. This shouldn’t be a surprise. This year’s final round lacked drama, with winner Scottie Scheffler pretty much in control throughout the day.

Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis noted that in the past three decades, only COVID-era Masters in 2020 (5.64 million) and 2021 (9.54 million) had fewer viewers. Those were the least-viewed Masters since 1993.

But Lewis also points out, “As one would expect, the final round of the Masters still ranks as the most-watched golf telecast and one of the most-watched sporting events of the past year — placing ahead of four of five World Series games and every Daytona 500 since 2017. It also goes without saying that the Masters dominated all other weekend sporting events.”

Just for fun, however, I will mention that the 9.58 million was nowhere near the number of viewers (18.7 million) that watched the NCAA women’s college basketball final between South Carolina and Iowa (and star Caitlin Clark) one week earlier on a Sunday afternoon.

Other media notes, tidbits and interesting links …

• Speaking of Clark, Tom Kludt writes for Vanity Fair: “Behind the Scenes With Caitlin Clark on WNBA Draft Day: ‘I Definitely Know There’s Eyeballs on Me.’”
• Axios’ Sara Fischer with “Dozens of Alden newspapers run coordinated editorials slamming Google.”
• For the Los Angeles Times, Greg Braxton and Carolyn Cole with “What ‘Civil War’ gets right and wrong about photojournalism, according to a Pulitzer Prize winner.”
• For The Washington Post, Dave Barry, Angela Garbes, Melissa Fay Greene, John Grogan and Charles Yu with “How does the election feel around the country? 5 writers capture the vibe.” Barry, as always looking at things a bit differently, writes, “Greetings from the Sunshine State! The mood down here, as we anticipate the 2024 presidential election, is one of hopefulness. Specifically, we’re hoping that a large, previously undetected meteor will strike the planet before November.”
• For NPR and “Morning Edition,” Elizabeth Blair with “50 years ago, ‘Come and Get Your Love’ put Native culture on the bandstand.”

More resources for journalists

• Thursday webinar : Covering transgender issues with authority and accuracy.
• Applications for Poynter Producer Project close on Friday!
• Reporter’s Toolkit gives you the tools to succeed early in your career. Apply by April 28.
• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing .

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] .

The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here .

Opinion | A conversation with White House Correspondents’ Association president Kelly O’Donnell

Advocating for her press corps colleagues has become a second full-time job for NBC News' senior White House correspondent.

Hunter Biden was indicted twice. A claim that he and others have escaped criminal charges is wrong.

Donald Trump faces dozens of criminal charges, but it’s inaccurate to claim that others including Hunter Biden were never charged with any crimes.

Opinion | The case for funding environmental journalism right now

Philanthropy has an important role to play in supporting reporters, but funding must be transparent and clear to maintain credibility

How Poynter transformed a hands-on workshop into an email course

Lessons learned from an experiment in building a new journalism project

Opinion | Journalists at Columbia are leading the coverage of their campus

The Columbia Daily Spectator has expertly documented tense protests over the Israel-Hamas war inside and outside the campus.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Start your day informed and inspired.

Get the Poynter newsletter that's right for you.