The passage in our Letters text (p. 54) about Gay Talese's 1966 profile of Frank Sinatra for Esquire Magazine piqued my interest enough that I looked up the piece.
I was intrigued by this idea of profiling somebody without ever having interviewed them, using only your powers of observation. It's something I'd like to try sometime, for the intellectual challenge, and also because I feel my observational skills are up to the task.
I've been reading this piece slowly on my eBook Reader (it's quite long) but I'm enjoying the unique style it brings as well -- use of fiction-style writing in non-fiction without losing the reliability and accuracy demanded by good reporting -- the so-called New Journalism. A style not appropriate for our particular class as we focus on the foundations, but perhaps inspiring to those who think of themselves more as writers who do journalism than journalists who write.
I too am interested in being forced to remain on the periphery of a subject's life when doing a profile piece.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny you mention the distinction between those of us who consider ourselves writes, who happen to have fallen into journalism, as opposed to others who first and foremost identify themselves as journalists, writers second.
As fairly newly minted to the world of journalism (not sure I can actually count myself among the ranks of journalists, so perhaps "reporter" is more apt) I myself am not entirely sure into which camp I place myself.
I have heard one editor I know, a writer of two unpublished fiction works, comment that when at his job he is not a "writer". Hmm. Come to think of it, he has also said that there is no such thing as "writer's block" in journalism because the process we follow when writing is formulaic in a way that allows little room for creativity.
Having heard some of the great writing done by several of our classmates, I disagree - at least with regard to assignments thus far. Each piece has had a unique voice, a feature not endorsed by "old-schoolers" and those who deal mainly in hard news...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletei think this editor's perspective is pretty sad, but it's also not surprising. newspapers are laudable for their investigative work, their grit, and the valuable public service they provide, but if you're looking for good writing you're in the wrong place.
ReplyDeletenewspaper writing certainly ain't for me. to dumb and dull down my writing to the point that it's dry and unremarkable isn't something i could do for a living, even if it "does the job." for me it has to do more than just that.
happily, Journalism is about much more than just newspapers!