Monday, September 27, 2010

Blog 9


Blog 9
Michelle Klug


Rational Vs. Romantic Reporting

Webb brings about a modern definition of new journalism that rejects five preconceived ideas of what journalism was and instead replaces them with parallel ideas that change and context and style of the writing.
            Webb emphasized the old style of journalism as being strictly based on fact and objectivity. This he terms “rational reporting”. This emphasizes the reporter as a man or woman who is able to reason and see outside reality. This reporter knows the uniform nature of human beings and writes for an unchanging world. He or she understands things in pieces. The reporter does just than, reports. He or she stays objective by not immersing himself or herself, just observing, and relaying his or her message back to the reader
            The “new journalism” that Webb describes is termed “romantic reporting” as a reportage that extends the writers emotions into the piece. The romantic reporter longs to find the internal thoughts and emotions of others as well as embraces the diversity of human nature. He or she views the subject in their ups and downs and looks at their effect on the human ecosystem as a whole, instead of in pieces.
            Webb is smart to rename new journalism because in fact it is not necessarily new. Some of the elements he described are present in earlier pieces we have read. And also some “old” or “rational” journalism techniques are present in some of the most recent pieces we have read.
            On one end of the spectrum, I would place Wolfe as the most romantic writer. He is ultimately immersed in the culture in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (1968). He goes into detail to the point where you might think he was actually present in the situation. He was “on the bus” although he may not have been present in the bus trip. The book is based around his feelings of what is happening and the book is understood in terms of thought and interaction with others. Wolfe captures internal thoughts of the pranksters and reflects on them in their diverse roles. He is documenting a new culture, on that is dynamic and experimental. Ken Kesey and his experimental bus trip are characterized by ultra-changing actions and mindsets, the opposite of a static situation. Although he gives emphasis to individual roles he captures the collective voice. There is a communal understanding of letting go and being who you are and doing what it is that is “your thing”, as long as it functions well with the community.
                                    If “new” journalism is strictly in reference to time period, then Boswell must be a time traveler because his biography of Samuel Johnson has many of the romantic journalism elements. The book coins the era of writing as “distanced objectivity”. This is the opposite. Not only does Boswell interject himself into the story, he stages scenes, and then admits to it! Boswell constructs scenes, incorporates dialogue, and gives status detail to paint a picture for the readers. Overall, this piece is very romantically written and is almost 200 years before its time.
            Hersey’s “Hiroshima” is no Wolfe but ranks pretty high in romantic writing. Hersey does in interject himself or his feelings into the piece but instead does massive research in order to captures others internal reality and feelings. Each character is diverse and exists independently of the group, however he ties links together and captures the feeling of the Hiroshima bombing as a whole at the end. The story is not as objective as others we have read but very detailed, vivid, and strongly worded.
            Jones’ “The Things That Carried Him” is another example of romantic writing. This piece is full of emotion and internal characterization. Each and every character, from the gravedigger to the widow, is portrayed as real and full of feeling and life. The story is dynamic, taking through all walks of life, and different places in the world, then coming to a whole as one interconnected life as we see how the rituals and burial process of a fallen soldier.
            Bragg’s tornado story vs. the wire service version showed us just how different two pieces can be when written romantically vs. rationally. At one end Bragg takes us through the emotional plight of each diverse character and captures the towns feelings of loss in a wholistic view. The piece focuses on the characters’ internal realty as they search for answers and question their own faith after such a horrific accident. The wire service version is the opposite. It simply gives the cold hard facts, and is void of color and emotion.
            Herr’s excerpt from “Dispatches” (1977) also strikes me as romantic writing because of his word choice and interjection into the story. Herr has internalized his own reality as opposed to Wolfe’s internalization of others realities. He expresses his fear, worry, and disgust. The story is dynamic, telling the good stories and the bad. This writing is objective in that it does not glorify the soldiers or war but tells the story in his crude and informal way, documenting human nature and war culture.
Capote has many elements of romantic writing but also some of rational as well. The characterization and extreme detail is what makes this piece dynamic. Perry, Dick, and the Clutters are all very diverse and Capote captures the air of the community very well (suspicious, watchful, scared). The piece isn’t quite as emotional as some of the other pieces we have read, and sometimes plays on the rational mind. For example, the story made Perry seem very child-like, kind of just going along with Dick’s master plan. Although there is a wholistic view, the story is best understood in the parallel pieces Capote dissects it to.
            Mitchell’s “Up in the Old Hotel” I would characterize as semi-romantic. He characterizes Louie very well and we at times see Mitchell’s own interjection into the story. Louie is a complex character who is often times nostalgic about his old town. He does not seem to be able to completely cope with not having a history and prominence in his new country and is severely disappointed when he finds his establishment doesn’t either. Mitchells grasps the elements of emotion and internal reality. The group message did not stand out to me, since the story is focused on the thoughts and actions of one person for most of the story.
Green’s biography of Sean Connery is characterized by his own opinions, broken expectations, and scene selection. He chooses a nostalgia approach, accenting his fallen hero’s, then goes on the portray a injured James Bond, but one that he still admires. He captures his internal reality, but not the reality of his subject. The character he displays is not very diverse; in fact we don’t learn that much about him besides his doctors visits. Overall, I would not rate this as romantic or rational, but maybe somewhere in the middle.
            Dickens and Defoe both seem to capture a more rational approach to journalism. Both seem to be a search for truth, and wanting to portray a preconceived notion in a more factual light. Although there is dialogue and dynamic characters, the pieces are not particularly emotional and do not capture anyone’s internal reality and group message.
            Breslins’s portrayal of Kennedy’s funeral is written in plain style; without long, winding, detailed sentence. Breslin takes a Hemingway approach with short strong worded sentences. Although this piece is not void of emotion it is not written to greatly express any one character’s innermost feelings. The characters are not dynamic, but the piece does have a feeling of community understanding and respect of the dead president. This piece reads more as a rational piece to me.            
My question for the class is : We have focused on our three main literary elements being dialogue, status detail, and scene-by-scene construction. Is there a connection of the level of “romantic” journalism and the presence of these elements?


Monday, September 20, 2010

Blog 8


Blog 8

The reading that I think most exemplifies the notion of plain but powerful is Breslin’s representation of Kennedy’s funeral. I find this piece emotionally void and the author to be separated completely from the people he is writing about. The piece itself is very plain and Breslin does not give his opinions but it still has a very powerful effect that draws emotion in the reader.
Breslin gives 2 short accounts that are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The first is a gravedigger, who is honored to help in burying this deceased president. He gives the details of the special care the man takes to make the gravesite presentable for such an important funeral. Breslin hints at the irrelevancy of the man’s low wage, and the man’s respect and patriotism towards the memory of his president.
The second story centers around the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy. He describes her strength in plain words. For example, Breslin says, “She walked past silent people who strained to see her and then, seeing her, dropped their heads and put their hands over their eyes. She walked with tight steps and her head was high and she followed the body of her murdered husband through the streets of Washington.” There is no excessive detail in this sentence. There is no description of sobbing Americans or their emotions because it doesn’t even need to be mentioned. The piece is a series of short unembellished descriptions. But the descriptions are powerful. The quote gives the reader an idea of Kennedy’s strength and the respect she is receiving from the onlookers.
Both simply written stories serve to show ideas of strength, patriotism, and respect. The gravedigger had feelings of honor, even with a low wage, to have been a part in the president’s funeral. Then, we see Jacqueline Kennedy’s strength even when she has to bear the burden on loneliness and loss.
Another line I find simple yet powerful in when Breslin states, “In front of the grave, Lyndon Johnson kept his head turned to his right. He is President and he had to remain composed.” This sentence is very simple. Yet the thoughts that come of it are emotionally provoking. You know that to not even to be able to bear to look at the casket in the fear the a grown man, and the president of the United States, would break down into uncontrollable tears is heart-breaking. Overall, this piece was the most powerful despite its lack of long-winded details.
            The excerpt from Tom Wolfe seemed to be the most detailed and wordy piece we read this week. And personally, it took me forever to get through this whole book when I read it a few years ago. The book itself is loosely written and Wolfe explores “grok style” by using hippie lingo and ideas as his writing style. Wolfe seems to understand the “on the bus” notion and “wailing with it” which are both prominent themes throughout the entire book. He identifies with the pranksters and I often questioned if he rode on the bus with them. Wolfe at times is omniscient, describing not only the situation, but also internal thoughts and feelings of the pranksters. There are parts of this except that are so utterly pumped with details that you forget where the story is even going. For example the following quote is incredibly detailed but has no real purpose.
            “…the fabulous love bunk-synch- can see that sleeping bag veritably filling up with sperm, the little devils swimming like mad in there in the muck, oozing into the cheap hairy shit they quilt the bag with, millions billions trillions of them, darting around, crafty little flagellants, looking to score, which is natural, if any certified virgin on the face of the earth crawled into that sleeping bag for a nap after lunch she would be hulking knowed-up mirage inside of three minute.”
            I think the reader gets the idea of the use for the sleeping bag bed after saying “love bunk” but Wolfe goes on to describe it with this detailed anecdote like he does many other things in this book. His detailed anecdotes make the book over 400 pages long. This particular excerpt from the book did not strike me as powerful. However, I do not think that was the intention. Overall, I see this piece to be quite opposite of Breslin’s and also of Greene’s. Although Greene interjects himself into his writing, he is much more distanced that Wolfe. Breslin seems to be the opposite of Wolfe’s “grok” style is not trying to share the ideas and identify with his characters, just simply describe. 
            In Greene’s portrait of Connery he describes his fears on needles and his doctors visits for injuries. Why does he highlight Connery’s weaknesses when he holds Connery is such high regard as the ultimate James Bond? 

Blog 7


Blog 7
In Capote’s “In Cold Blood” we see what was thought to be devices appropriate only for fiction incorporated in this non-fiction narrative. Capote uses status detail to characterize the townspeople, Clutter family, the detectives, and the criminals. You know everything about these characters, including their prerogatives, motives, and quirks. Take Nancy for example. We know that Nancy was a busy American small town sweetheart that baked apple pies and wanted to marry her high school sweetheart. The details that Capote gives us such as a look into her diary and when she got mad at Bobby for drinking beer gives us an idea of how innocent she was. This intense characterization moves the story from simple horizontal reporting. If Capote was to simply say “Nancy Clutter, 16, murdered in her home…” we would not be personally connected to the character as we are after he reveals the plethora of status details for each character.
He also establishes characterization by using dialogue. This element takes simple reporting to vertical reportage by creating connections with the characters, and their interactions. For example, we know that Dewey worked tirelessly to solve the murder. A lot of this is revealed by the use of dialogue between him and his wife. For example when his wife says, “Alvin, are you lighting another cigarette. Honestly Alvin, can’t you at least try and sleep?” Never in a newspaper article would find dialogue as minor as this. By having dialogue it brings the characterization to a whole new level by putting the reader in the scene and letting them listen to something so intimate as conversations by husband and wife.
This book also has many instances of scene-by-scene construction. The book flashes between scenes of what is going on with the Clutter family and the criminals. The most prominent example I can think of is the description of the crime scene. Capote goes into detail about the eyes of Mrs. Clutter, and how to bodies were tied and positioned. He gives details of where the Kenyon’s spectacles were and how there was a pillow placed under his head. Although Capote does not go into dramatic details about blood and gore he does fully describe the scene and how it was discovered. The whole Clutter house and property in general was described very well. The scene will them flash sideways to what the criminals are doing at that same time, and another scene will be constructed.
Although the story itself is written in chronological order with a few interjected flashbacks, it surpasses the normal newspaper reporting. By using the literary elements listed above it reads like a novel and achieves a different effect that a newspaper article. Most of the things we read in the newspaper we forget, even murders. This is because we do not know the characters or the complete story. However, by bringing the reader into the story and introducing us to the characters, Capote creates a lasting impression. His reportage skills make this story seem like a piece of fiction and when you learn it is not, it is that much more powerful.
We seem to stumble on the subject of objectivity a lot in class. Do you think Capote was objective in writing this book?  

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Blog 6


Blog 6
Michelle Klug
9/12/10

            Whitman uses vivid scenes, strategic word placement, and the comparison of nature and war to bring the recreation of a Civil War battle to life.
            Even though Whitman was not there, you would have never known. The scenes are so detailed and sprinkled with images only a bystander would know. He enlightens the senses by being telling the reader what was seen, smelled, felt, etc.  An example of this is when Whitman said, “some of the men had their hair and beard singed”. This is such a minor detail that many would not think to ask about or include, but gives the reader an image of a burly Civil War soldier with their hair burned. He describes the sounds of “groans and scream” which is reflective of a chaotic, painful scene.  And also uses the description of, “the odor of blood” to describe the stench of war.
            Another element of this article I find particularly poetic is his strategy of word placement. When asks the open-ended question, “is this indeed humanity- these butchers’ shambles?” after he describes the wounded soldiers, this inevitably makes the reader think philosophically about the moral consequences of war. It almost serves to discourage one from the act of war. The vivid scene followed by the question of morality and the words “butchers’ shambles” to describe a human being is emotionally provoking the reader. Another example is when Whitman describes the scene by saying, “no fancy battle, no semi-play, but fierce and savage demons fighting there-courage and scorn of the death the rule, exceptions almost none”. These words make the soldiers no longer men, but animals. His word placement throughout the story serves to accent the evils of war.
            Lastly, and most importantly, Whitman has a continuous comparison of a very placid nature scene to the very not placid war scene. He sometimes even has them juxtaposing each other. There are many example of this but I will give this as one I think is particularly well constructed. Whitman said, “the flash of the naked sword, and rolling flame and smoke? Again still the broken, clear, and clouded heaven- and still again the moonlight pouring silvery soft its radiant patches all over”.  He will make a scene of brutality and violence and then follow it up with a mystic nature scene. This makes it seem like Whitman is in the scene observing the battle and taking note of the surroundings and how eerily calm everything was. Overall, all these literary techniques turn the portrayal of a battle scene into an emotionally and visually complex story.
            Michael Herr’s Dispatches is similar in the erratic style of writing. Jumping from one thought to another, without chronology, or warning. Dispatches is less poetic, and more organic in the blunt wording. His writing style is very informal, and personal.
            The story is written mostly in first person, from his view. The feelings of fear and sadness are his own. He does not go into the feelings of the soldiers, just what he visually observed of them. The story will jump from his personal feelings, to blunt and ironic statements such as, “Gee, you must see some beautiful sunsets in here”. The story will then go into song lyrics, or an excerpt about the actions of the soldiers. The time sequences are unknown and he mentions in the piece that looking back on his time, he could not differentiate time.
            As pointed out in the introduction, his writing style parallels the war. Everyone has their own fears and thoughts and fighting is erratic and messy. He often just puts random lists of things he sees to describe the scene. For example he describes the helicopter as, “saver-destroyer, provider-waster, right hand-left hand, nimble, fluent, canny, and human; hot steel, grease…”. The soldiers were not ready for what us playing out before their eyes, as Herr was not ready to see the death and destruction he encountered. He states, “How do you feel when a nineteen-year-old kid tells you from the bottom of his heart that he’s gotten too old for this kid of shit?”. 
            Although both pieces are organic in that they flow with the emotion of the writer and are not rigid, Dispatches seems to me much more random and unconventional. Although Whitman’s piece does not seem to follow an obvious logic, he has patterns of comparison with nature and metaphoric scenes.

My question for the class: Dispatches is written in parallel of the Vietnam war: “The war had no linear “front”, it was everywhere”. We see that Herr’s writing is random, not chronological, crude, and ironic. Does Whitman’s work parallel the civil war? If so how or how not? 

Monday, September 13, 2010

Paper Proposal

Paper Proposal
Michelle Klug
9/13/10

Research Topic: Unconventional journalism for an unconventional counterculture: How the writing of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion reflect the social fragmentation of the 60’s and 70’s counterculture. 
            
Purpose and Method: My research paper will serve to analyze the techniques and styles used by Thomson, Wolfe, and Didion to portray the 60’s and 70’s counterculture. I will also examine how these different styles go to represent the social fragmentation of this time period and how it is unique to previous eras of journalism. Some themes I will explore are rejection of tradition, sexuality, individuality, and distrust of authority. I will explore how each of these authors represent these themes and how it reflects on the generation and the view of new journalism as a whole.   

Bibliography

Thompson, Hunter S. (1992). Gonzo Papers, Volume 1: The Great Shark Hunt. New York, NY. Ballantine Books.

Didion, Joan. (1968). Slouching Towards Bethlehem. New York, NY. Simon and Schuster.

Wolfe, Tom. (1968). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, NY. Farrar, Straus, and Girox

Staub, Michael E. (1997). Black Panthers, New Journalism, and the Rewriting of the Sixties. Representations. 57. Pp. 52-72. Retrieved         September 13, 2010, from htt://jstor.org/stable/2928663

Wimmer, Natasha. "Joan Didion: Telling It Like It Is (or Should Be)." Publishers Weekly 248.42 (2001): 41-42. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.

Muggli, Mark Z. "The Poetics of Joan Didion's Journalism." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 59.3 (1987): 402-421. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.

Konas, Gary. "Traveling 'Furthur' with Tom Wolfe's Heroes." Journal of Popular Culture 28.3 (1994): 177-192. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.

Bortz, Eli J. The New Journalism and Its Editors: Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Their Early Experiences. Gainesville, Fla.: University of Florida, 2005. Internet resource

Meyers, Paul T. New Journalist As Culture Critic: Wolfe, Thompson, Talese. , 1989. Print.

Thompson, Hunter S, Alison Ellwood, Alex Gibney, and Johnny Depp. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Los Angeles, Calif: Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2008.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Blog 5


Blog 5
            Journalistic objectivity is a writer’s ability to assess a subject without biases and not misrepresent a person or scenario with their partial opinions. It is hard to say if a story can truly be written without any biases whatsoever because human beings always have feeling and emotions that make them lean one way or the other. When an author gathers information for a story he or she has to sift through countless interviews and research and what he puts decides to add or no add is a subconscious reflection of his opinion, what he wants the reader to know about the story.  
In Dickens’ article The Great Tasmania’s Cargo, the victims were the soldiers. In Hersey’s Hiroshima the victims were the Japanese. No prior information is given on what sparked these people to fall victim to tragedy. It can be argued that the dropping of the atomic bomb saved lives by ending further war. The blame can be put on Truman and the American’s or put on the Emperor and Japanese military. Although Hiroshima satisfies Hersey’s agenda of putting morality into the mix of the WWII bombings, it does not exactly give an impartial account of the bombing. If an outsider who knew nothing about the war were to read this, they would immediately think of the Japanese as the good guys and Americans as evil. An example of Hersey’s biased views is how he portrayed the co-pilot of plane that bombed Hiroshima as a money-hungry drunk. Maybe he was; maybe he wasn’t. The reader will never know because that’s all the author gives us about him.
This and other readying applies to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the respect that the more the reader embellishes one side of the story(position) the less valid the piece as a whole seems(momentum). For example, I was really angered by a recent news story about a whale trainer being killed by a captive whale during a training session at Sea World. The story described how the whale brutally shook around the trainer like a rag doll and violently drowned her. The story neglects to tell how taking a whale out of the wild and forcing it to perform tricks in a small pool may be inhumane and cause the animal to be angered, which every animal trainer should know upon entering the profession. Upon reading the article, it lost its legitimacy for me right away because it neglected to mention all of the wrongdoings and controversies of the situation.
In Boswell’s biography of Johnson, although he creates his own scenarios, and mentions his personal prominence in the articles, he seems to keep the position up to the reader. In the article, The Ultimate Literary Portrait,  he points out that no one is perfect and he will put the good with that bad in his biography. He points out that Johnson was partially blind deaf, and freakishly tall. He recalls his snobbishness to him upon first impression. Although he does attribute Johnson some qualities of a hero, her does put in negative qualities and quirks that make the reader more likely to believe that story. By making the position he holds on Johnson vague, he increases the momentum for the reader to consider his work accurate.
An even more vague position is fly-on-the-wall reporting, which allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about a situation. This style occurs when the writer’s prominence is not present in his story and he does not make scenes of situations. This style would give the most momentum and capacity for accuracy. Even a tape recorder could affect objective reality. If a person knows he or she is being recorded and can be held accountable for the things divulged, this may deter the speaker from giving facts that may be negative towards themselves or their kin.
Overall, I do not think many literary pieces are written impartially. And in some cases, when the general story is already known, the author may justify presenting the less popular subject’s story by the assumption of the reader’s prior knowledge of the event at hand. Do you think that Hersey is objective in his sympathies with the Japanese due to the assumption of prior knowledge by American readers on WWII and the Hiroshima bombings?  What about Daniel Defoe’s portrayal of Jonathan Wild? 

Blog 4-Validity and Literary Elements


Blog 4
In my opinion it’s say safe to say that no piece of journalism is completely true, and free of biases and embellishments. Even if a story based on proven factual accounts, it may lack some details and elements of the story that would have given the reader the whole story and not just the side the author wishes the reader to know. For example, Hersey claims that,
“literary journalism must be factually authentic and absolutely reliable,” (111).
            Although there is no way of us, the reader, knowing what is truth and what is factually accurate, unless we were to go on some long quest to prove the author wrong. There could be instances of Hersey’s embellishments, the interviewee’s misinterpretation or biases. In the book Hiroshima, Hersey moralized the 1945 bombing by taking the reader into the lives of 6 main characters. The characters all seemed to be respectable brave people who underwent a huge tragedy. Never in the book were any wrongdoings mentioned. Even the “Playboy” (129) doctor who took his son to a dance club/brothel to “show him how to be a man”(129) was made out to be a hero. Never did Hersey mention how none of the characters were willing to risk their lives to try and dig random people out from the burning rubble and instead decided to flee to the park, besides Mr. Fukai, the man that had to be dragged away from the scene. So although a book may be factually accurate the author still may shape the scope of the book by neglecting to include all of the details.
            The same principal applies to James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson. Boswell staged certain scenarios that would indeed produce conflict or action that would be good for his story. Is this created conflict taking away from the truth of the story? Not every journalist has to be fly on the wall but personal presence in a piece takes away the element of reporting and reads more like a narrative. Boswell often includes his opinion in the article about what is going on instead of letting the reader figure it out on his or her own.
            The line of fact and fiction was not as unbiased in the earlier journalism articles we read this week. For example, in Daniel Defoe’s portrayal of Jonathan Wild, he adds moral character to the criminal by adding the dialogue with the lady. Even here the author has the power to moralize or de-moralize the character as he sees fit. In Charles Dickens’ writings we have ready his personal presence is noted multiple times and the story reads as he see’s it. He also adds personal opinions in Great Tasmania when he says,
“No punishment that our inefficient laws provide is worthy of the name when set against the guilt of this transaction. But, if the memory die out unavenged, and if it does not result in the inexorable dismissal and disgrace of those who are responsible for it, their escape will be infamous for the Government that so neglects it’s duty…”(45).
There is no doubt that early literary journalism reflect that author’s agenda where as in modern time, we may be more quick to pick out a story that one reflects one side of the story.
            Dramatic scenes, dialogue, third person, and details of environment indeed all go into making the difference from simply reporting to literary journalism. Another element I can think of is the writer’s ability to use their personal style as a path for understanding. This meaning that all of the strategic word placement, chronology, descriptive sentences, move the reader to get a sense of what is going on. And if done really well, this is what can engage the reader into the book. For example, Hersey description of the scene where all of the skin-shedding bodies laying on the river bank is pretty grotesque but so descriptive that it gives you an image of how badly people were actually injured. Hersey also uses his jumping from character to character to keep the reader engaged while still making clean the sequence of events. To cross the line to literacy an author has to used interviews, pictures, personal accounts, quotes, vivid scenes, and action to make the work read like a novel and not a newspaper.
To me, Hersey and Dickens seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, i.e. one is personally involved in the story and the other is writing on purely the accounts of others. What different strategies do they use for this and how does it change the perceived validity of the story?