The New Journalism
ISBN 0-06-047183-2 | |
The New Journalism is a 1973
Manifesto
The first section of the book consists of four previously published texts by Wolfe: The Feature Game and Like a Novel (published as The Birth of "The New Journalism": An Eyewitness Report and The New Journalism: A la Recherche des Whichy Thickets, in the New York Magazine, on February 14 and February 21, 1972); Seizing the Power and Appendix (published as Why They Aren't Writing the Great American Novel Anymore, in Esquire, December 1972).
The text is a diatribe against the American novel which Wolfe sees as having hit a dead end by moving away from realism, and his opinion that journalism is much more relevant. In effect, his manifesto is for mixing journalism with literary techniques to document in a more effective way than the novel. These techniques were most likely inspired by writers of social realism, such as Émile Zola and Charles Dickens. His manifesto for New Journalism (although he had no great affection for the term) has four main points.
- Scene by scene construction. Rather than rely on second-hand accounts and background information, Wolfe considers it necessary for the journalist to witness events first hand, and to recreate them for the reader.
- Dialogue. By recording dialogue as fully as possible, the journalist is not only reporting words, but defining and establishing character, as well as involving the reader.
- The third person. Instead of simply reporting the facts, the journalist has to give the reader a real feeling of the events and people involved. One technique for achieving this is to treat the protagonists like characters in a novel. What is their motivation? What are they thinking?
- Status details. Just as important as the characters and the events, are the surroundings, specifically what people surround themselves with. Wolfe describes these items as the tools for a "social autopsy", so we can see people as they see themselves.
Anthology
Part two, which makes up the major part of The New Journalism, consists of twenty-four texts, collected by Wolfe and Johnson. Every text features a short introduction, written by Wolfe.
Texts
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
The excerpt from
In the introduction Wolfe writes "For all his attention to novelistic technique, however, Capote does not use point of view in as sophisticated way as he does in fiction. One seldom feels that he is really inside of the minds of the characters. One gets a curious blend of third-person point of view and omniscient narration. Capote probably had sufficient information to use point of view in a more complex fashion but was not yet ready to let himself go in nonfiction."
Robert Christgau, Beth Ann and Macrobioticism
Beth Ann and Macrobioticism, by Robert Christgau, is the 20th text in the anthology. It was Christgau's first magazine article[1] In 1965 Christgau was a reporter for the Dorf Feature Service in Newark, NJ.
Title | Author | First Published | Magazine/Newspaper First Published in | Book Published in |
---|---|---|---|---|
Excerpt from In Cold Blood |
Truman Capote | September 25, 1965 | The New Yorker | In Cold Blood |
Beth Ann and Macrobioticism | Robert Christgau | 1965 | New York Herald Tribune | - |
Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream | Joan Didion | May 7, 1966 | The Saturday Evening Post | Slouching Towards Bethlehem |
‘That's What We Come to Minneapolis For,’ Stan Hough said | John Gregory Dunne | 1969 | - | The Studio |
Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse | Joe Eszterhas | July 6, 1972 | Rolling Stone | - |
La Dolce Viva | Barbara Goldsmith | April 29, 1968 | New York Magazine | - |
Gear | Richard Goldstein |
1969 | The Village Voice | - |
Khesanh | Michael Herr | September 1965[2] | Esquire[2] | - |
Excerpt from The Armies of the Night | Norman Mailer | 1968 | - | The Armies of the Night |
Excerpt from The Selling of the President 1968 | Joe McGinniss | 1969 | - | The Selling of the President 1968 |
The Detective | James Mills | December 3, 1965[2] | LIFE[2] | - |
Excerpt from Paper Lion | George Plimpton | 1966 | - | Paper Lion |
Ava: Life in the Afternoon | Rex Reed | May 1967[3] | Esquire' | Do You Sleep in the Nude? |
Timing and a Diversion: The Cocoa Game | "Adam Smith" (pen name for George Goodman) | New York World Journal Tribune | The Money Game | |
Excerpt from M | John Sack | October 1966[4] | Esquire[4] | M |
Twirling at Ole Miss | Terry Southern | February 1963[5] | Esquire[5] | Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes |
The Soft Psyche of Joshua Logan | Gay Talese | April 1963[6] | Esquire[6] | - |
Excerpt from Hell's Angels |
Hunter S. Thompson | 1966 | - | Hell's Angels
|
The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved | Hunter S. Thompson | June 1970 | Scanlan's Monthly | - |
The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong | Nicholas Tomalin | June 5, 1966[2] | The Sunday Times[2] | - |
Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case | Garry Wills | August 1968[2] | Esquire[2] | - |
The Fugitive | Tom Wolfe | 1968 | - | The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test |
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers | Tom Wolfe | June 8, 1970[2] | New York Magazine[2] | - |
Reception
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Notes
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Murphy, James E. (May 1974). Westley, Bruce H. (ed.). The New Journalism: A Critical Perspective. Journalism Monographs. Vol. 34. The Association for Education in Journalism.
- Weingarten, Marc (2006). The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution. ISBN 1-4000-4914-8.
- ISBN 0-06-014707-5.
Contemporary reviews
The New Journalism
- The Atlantic Monthly. The Atlantic Monthly Group.
- Wood, Michael (June 22, 1973). "The New Journalism". The New York Times.
Texts in the anthology
- Kazin, Alfred (May 5, 1968). "The Trouble He's Seen". The New York Times.
Secondary sources
- ISBN 0-679-74558-0.
- Truman, Capote (October 9, 1965). "Annals of Crime: In Cold Blood: III Answers". The New Yorker. pp. 58–183.
- Cartwright, Garth (May 12, 2001). "Master of the Rock Review". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group.
- Didion, Joan (May 7, 1966). "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream". The Saturday Evening Post.
- ISBN 0-374-27112-7.
- McQuade, Donald, ed. (1974). Popular Writing in America: The Interaction of Style and Audience. Oxford University Press.
- Plimpton, George (September 7, 1964). "Zero of the Lions". Sports Illustrated.
- Russello, Gerald J. (November 21, 2005). "How New Journalism Became Old News". The New York Sun. ONE SL LLC.
- Hearst Corporation.
- Schuster, Mel, ed. (1971). Motion Picture Performers: A Bibliography of Magazine and Periodical Articles, 1900-1969. ISBN 0-8108-0407-7.
- Tate, Ryan (December 9, 2008). "The Nude Photos That Nearly Destroyed New York". Gawker.com. Gawker Media.
- Thompson, Hunter S. (May 17, 1965). "The Motorcycle Gangs, Losers and Outsiders". The Nation. Katrina vanden Heuvel.
- News Corporation.
- Wolfe, Tom (July 14, 2008). "A City Built of Clay". New York Magazine. New York Media LLC.
- Wolfe, Tom (February 14, 1972). "The Birth of 'The New Journalism'; Eyewitness Report by Tom Wolfe". New York Magazine. New York Media LLC. p. 44.
- Wolfe, Tom (February 21, 1972). "The New Journalism: A la Recherche des Whichy Thickets". New York Magazine. New York Media LLC. p. 152.
- Wolfe, Tom (December 1972). "Why They Aren't Writing the Great American Novel Anymore". Esquire. Hearst Corporation.
- "The 7 Greatest Stories in the History of Esquire Magazine". Esquire. Hearst Corporation. November 30, 2009. Retrieved December 31, 2009.