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?

Blog 3

Blog 3

Michelle Klug

mak05@ufl.edu

1.)            Up in the Old Hotel explores the traditions, ideas, and expectations that come out of the divide between past and present. The story focuses of the protagonist, Louie, and his nostalgic feelings he has towards his past. To Louie, everything has a history. He reflects on the long line of history his family has in his “ancient” town of Recco. Louie describes his town as social, his family as large, and his parents making a living off of their traditional family business. This is what seems to draw him to his fish market location. The hustle and bustle of the fish market, the smell of fish, and a general sense of belonging are all components in what makes Louie nostalgic about his childhood town. In a new and changing world, Sloppy Louie’s is a cutout of history not only for the fish market community but also for his own sense of self.

Louie is not afraid of progression and the future; he just wants to make sure he doesn’t forget his past. He welcomes all the new people from the different districts that dine in his restaurant. He features new dishes and always has a wide variety of seafood, but still holds on to his traditions such as making the bouillabaisse the traditional way as his family did in Recco. Never is the excerpt does he bash the new market or the new people coming into his restaurant. He even installs more tables on the second floor to accommodate the newcomers.

He finds refuge in the information provided by Mrs. Frelinghysen and her information on New York history. They are kindred spirits in their appreciation of traditions of the past. This is symbolized by the way she uses her “old family silver”. Louie is happy to know his building is an old Schermerhorn building since the name itself has a lot of history in New York. His dreams that some artifacts that hold prominence in history lie in the upper levels of his building are crushed when he finally goes up there. He does not find the fishing boxes, the records he is looking for; just old pointless artifacts and in his mind this is a failure. He views this as a failure because his restaurant is not located a building with a lot of history and prominence, just some old hotel dusty.

I understand Louie’s feeling of nostalgia, and the longing to be in a place that if familiar. I took a year off of school to travel before I started my masters program and ended up spending a month in Europe and a lot of time in the Caribbean. As much as I loved all the different places I went and tried to immerse myself in different cultures, I always felt a longing for something familiar. There were some points when I was lost and could not communicate and did not understand the customs. As much as I feel that I am cultured and an experienced traveler, I at times longed for a friendly English speaking American to help me with directions or tell me how to buy a train ticket. As much as the trip gave me more independence and a worldly experience, it also made me appreciate my how comfortable my home can be. 

2.)             The two tornado articles are similar in the respect that they give all of the details of the incident and you get a general sense of what happened and how the resident are taking it. They are also similar in the respect that they make it clear the resident are holding on to their faith but still at a loss for why something so horrible would happen in a church.

            However, the articles are drastically different in their word choice, attitude towards religion, and portrayal of Southern culture. From the first paragraph Bragg sets the stage for a very pristine and innocent south that is torn to shreds by this catastrophe. He uses vivid imagery such as men crying on other men’s shoulders, tombstones being ripped out of the ground, and baby’s Easter shoes scattering the rubble. This is taking full advantage of intersubjectivity and opening up the scene for an outsider with no personal ties to be brought and become engaged in the article.

            The article by Bragg also goes into a lot more depth about religion. Bragg point out that most Christian’s believe God is as almighty controller. However, now after the accident people are leaning towards the belief that this was an act of nature, not god, which goes against a lot of southern Christian beliefs.

Bragg is not subjectively documenting an incident that happened but putting you in a serene community where a tornado shook the Earth and made people question beliefs they have held their entire lives.

           

Blog 2

Blog 2

Michelle Klug

Mak05@ufl.edu

Ted Conover

            Ten Conover is considered one of the best of the new new journalists not only because of his writing style but of his technique of completely submerging himself in the culture he is documenting at the time. This participant-observer style usually means a complete change of lifestyle for Conover, especially coming from the upper-middle class. For his senior thesis at Amherst, Conover gave up all if his luxuries and became a train-riding hobo in order to document this subculture of traveling non-conformists. Out of this came Rolling Nowhere (1984). He did the same thing for Coyotes(1987), where he traveled around with illegal Mexican immigrants, crossing the border multiple times. For Whiteout (1991), Conover worked as a reporter and cab driver to document Aspen’s celebrity culture. Again for NewJack (2000), Conover got a job as prison guard at Sing Sing in order to observe the subculture of prison guards. Conover documents subcultures that are foreign to most readers with an unbiased tone, neither pitying, or praising, simply documenting their lifestyle.

            Although Conover never studied journalism, he worked at a variety of small newspapers when he was younger. Conover instead took a liking to Anthropology, which he credits to be what sparked his interest in seemingly insignificant subcultures. He chooses to saturate himself in the subculture’s environment to get all of the unseen, unspoken, hidden detail that a simple interview can’t get. He thinks that the emotional toll is worth it to get a good story.

            Conover always has an unbiased attitude going in. He credits this to his grade school days where he was bussed in to an interracial school in which he was the minority. He describes this as “liberating”.

            He chooses his stories based on which groups have conflict and change. He then finds the appropriate place and job in order to properly observe his subjects. For NewJack, he completed 7 weeks of training and then worked as a prison guard for 10 months to complete his story. He had to be in complete secret or else he would have been fired or worse. For Coyotes, he traveled with immigrants for 9 months, crossing the border multiple times.

            Conover’s strategy for getting a good story is to try and fit in as much as possible, becoming the character in outward appearance without crossing the line of being so submerged in the lifestyle that you forget to observe. He claims he is always himself although admitting a lot of it is performance based.

            Conover prefers interviews in person to observe a person’s body language and actions.  He relies in small spiral notebooks, which he writes down notes in, while undercover. He opens conversation by first speaking about himself and his past, which gives his subject a sense of trust then asking leading questions.

            When Conover feels he has enough information to answer the questions he went in with, he will begin transcribing his notes and start the writing process. He claims that he lies in bed until he can create an outline on what he is going to write for the day. He then goes through his many pages of notes and highlights the important parts he wishes to include. Once he is organized, Conover tries to write straight through a section without going back to correct. He only writes at 3-hour increments maximum. And at the end of the day he writes himself a note in capital letters on what he wants himself to accomplish the next day.

            Conover claims one of his major influences to be John Krakauer, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Jack London, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. He is hopeful about long form new journalism even though he sees the determent of it in recent magazines such as Rolling Stone. Conover is currently still writing books and working for the New Yorker. 

Klug, Michelle. Blog 1

Michelle Klug

mak05@ufl.edu

Masters in Mass Communication, Journalism

I am originally from Clearwater, Florida but I have lived in Tallahassee for the past 5 years.

I came to the University of Florida because the journalism program was the best in the state of Florida. 

My career goal is to write for a print or online magazine, specifically one that involves the environment, animals, or travel. 

Some of my interests include running, yoga, music festivals, traveling as much as I can, learning about different cultures, hiking with my dog, and most recently I have begun learning how to sail. 

Since my undergraduate major was political science and english literature, my writing is mainly research papers on topics related to politics, policy, and literature. 

Something interesting about myself is that I have always been a die hard Seminole fan. I did all 4 years of my undergraduate at FSU. Coming to UF is something I never imagined myself doing. But since the journalism program is so good, I am trying very hard to ease into the Gator culture. Lets just say, it’s going to be a little while before you see me in orange and blue! 

Currently, I am reading a book by the Dalai Lama, “Becoming Enlightened”, which is mainly about the basic principles of Buddhism. This summer I also reread my favorite book, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, and “Islands in the Stream” by Hemingway. 

I usually frequent CNN.com for my news updates. I also subscribe to National Geographic in print form. A few times a week I will pick up a Gainesville Sun and every day I am on campus I grab an Alligator.

The classes I am taking this semester besides this are Electronic Publishing and Reporting. 

I am learning towards doing a project in lieu of a thesis. However, I have no idea what I am going to be doing it on yet. 

During this class, I hope to broaden my horizon on literary journalism and get a better understanding on the works of the authors I am not familiar with. Since I did not study journalism in undergraduate I hope to observe the styles of some successful journalists.