Tom Wolfe is an American author and journalist, who moved to New York City in 1962, where he became employed by the publication, New York Herald Tribune. His book, The New Journalism, is split in two parts. The first is a manifesto and the second is an anthology of exemplary literary pieces that effectively illustrates part one, compiled by himself and editor, Edward Warren Johnson.
The phrase, ‘New Journalism’, refers to a form of writing that was born and developed during the sixties. It favours not the traditional conventions of dispassionate reporting, but rather the incorporation of narrative techniques, (most often found in the novel), into investigative journalism. Part one of Wolfe’s book, on which this seminar paper will focus, explores New Journalism’s emergence, his own employment of the form and its significance to Sixties American culture.
The first chapter explores his arrival in the City, describing the state of journalism early in the decade. Wolfe admits to a disappointment at the apparent lack of ambition within the field, both in his professional environment – as he compares the office to ‘the receiving bin at the Good Will’ (pp.16) – and in his future prospects. Many sixties journalists shared no interest in internal promotion. Instead, they competed amongst one another for a different purpose.
These journalists Wolfe refers to as ‘feature writers’, who worked largely for Sunday Supplements, contributing human interest stories and quirky anecdotes to the paper. Unlike ‘scoop reporters’, who dealt in ‘hard news’ that was usually politically based, feature writers sought to portray their pieces with a narrative verging on fiction. To them, journalism itself was simply a stepping stone towards what Wolfe calls their ‘final triumph’, which was the novel (pp.17).
As he acknowledges, since the latter half of the nineteenth century, the novel was perceived as the highest form of literature, which enabled the author to express his or her unquestionable maturity and understanding of the world. Here we begin to note the supposed hierarchy of writing, which arguably still exists today. Early novelists like Dickens, Twain and Bronte are still revered as celebrities of the literary world and their work remains the canon of English and American education. In comparison, the tabloidization of newspapers over recent decades has somewhat scarred the reputation of the so-called scoop reporters, due to growing trends in exaggeration and sensationalism that blurs the distinction between gossip and ‘real life’.
Thus, although a competitive environment would have proved beneficial to the quality of newspaper features during the time, it is perhaps indicative that writing was (and still may be) a conceited profession. However, as Wolfe states himself, this pursuit of the ‘final triumph’ is comparable with the American Dream, which is itself founded upon a striving simply to become the best one can be.
As a result, as the sixties wore on, feature writing became more popular and chapter two describes the way in which articles began to develop into fully fledged pieces of literary non-fiction. They were often characterised by descriptive scenes that conveyed the story to readers, which were subsequently connected by expository passages that were more journalistically conventional. For example, Guy Talese’s ‘The soft psyche of Joshua Logan’ (from the anthology), opens with; ‘The theatre lights dimmed, and the jewels in the audience sparkled like a city seen at night from an airplane…’ (pp.81). Having set the scene, Talese begins the next passage of his piece by placing the narrative in context, stating ‘and so here he was, in the Fall of 1962, stung successively by three critical flops…’ (pp.81).
By employing various literary devices, such as imagery, writers like Talese were given licence to put their own personal stamp on the story in question. Previously, columns and editorials were the only real vehicles for expressing opinion and these were only handed to distinguished reporters. Feature writing allowed journalists this rare opportunity to ‘go outside’ and find a good, interesting story and be able to approach it entirely subjectively (pp.25). Today, this may seem an ordinary procedure; however, Wolfe claims that in 1963 it was ‘unheard of among newspaper columnists’ (pp.25). New Journalism may partly be credited, therefore, with modern journalistic practices of actively interacting with the subject. Indeed, during the sixties these varied from joining the army and participating in training, to shadowing the infamous Hell’s Angels.
Wolfe notes one particular journalist from the Herald Tribune, Jimmy Breslin, who would gather copious amounts of background material in order to accurately portray his ‘characters’ and give them ‘life’. Wolfe is attempting to prove to his readers the effort that goes into each individual piece of feature writing, dispelling the myth of ‘flashes [of]… creativity’ that once drew the line between journalism and fictional novels (pp.27). He presents us with the ‘death of the novel’ and the resulting shock that this caused to the traditional ‘class structure’ of writing. This pyramid consisted of, at its very peak, novelists and poets, then came the essayists and historians, followed lastly by the journalists. Sunday Supplement writers, like Wolfe himself, were not considered to be ‘in the game’ and so their sudden use of all three of the other forms’ techniques was deeply disturbing to the literary world (pp.39).
In many ways, the emergence of New Journalism may be compared to a form of social revolution that Marx himself sought; namely, the liquidation of all ‘classes’ of literature into a single solution. Certainly, this style of writing differed in both discourse and content.
Point of view was vital to the art and Wolfe would even place himself in some of his articles to experiment with different narrative perspectives. He also states that subjectivity or objectivity becomes irrelevant if the narrator’s voice is too understated. The writer should assume the position of a man witnessing his or her protagonist in action and immerse the piece in the surrounding culture, (for example, taking up the dialect of the subject’s region). This Wolfe calls the ‘downstage voice’ (pp.32). In any case, he did not want to sound ‘like a radio announcer at a tennis match’ (pp.31).
In terms of content, Wolfe argues that Sixties America will later be defined not by its political events, but by its morals towards the counter culture, the ‘death of God’ and so on. Audiences or ‘consumers’ wanted the framing of social realism to change; there was a new fascination with surrealism and Freudian theories and New Journalism exploited this, unlike the novelists, who seemed to limit their interests to the likes of space exploration and the on-going war in Vietnam. Pop culture and drug use were common issues that feature writing explored, accounting largely for its sudden explosion in popularity during a decade labelled the ‘Swinging Psychedelic Sixties’.
The final chapter of part one lays out Wolfe’s four essential devices that characterise any piece of New Journalism. Wolfe argues that this feature writing gave the literary form ‘immediacy… concrete reality… [and] emotional involvement’, achieved firstly through ‘scene-by-scene construction’ (pp.46). As opposed to earlier examples, such as that of Talese in 1963, articles eventually evolved into legitimate ‘short stories’, which were developed narratively by the direct transition from one scene to another, without use of the previously employed expository passage. This can be seen in another of the anthology’s articles, ‘Gear’, written by Richard Goldstein in 1969. The opening paragraph begins with, ‘Too early to get up, especially on Saturday. The sun peeks over his windowsill’, before the next starts, ‘In the bathroom he breaks three screaming pimples’ (pp.96). Unlike the previous article, there is no explanation, between scenes, from an external narrator as to what is happening, which furthers the impression of this piece of journalism as a fictional story in its own right.
Secondly, any dialogue must be recorded in full, avoiding paraphrasing as much as possible so as to present a strong sense of character, while the story should also be told through the third-person point of view, as demonstrated by Goldstein. In comparison to conventional journalism, which is usually conveyed through the first-person (i.e. the reporter), this allows readers into the story of every character and so portrays several different perspectives.
Finally, in order also to convey an accurate account, the fourth device states that the writer must symbolise what Wolfe calls the ‘status life’ of the protagonist. Every physical aspect, every mannerism, every significant relationship must be used in building a subtle image of the subject of the piece. In ‘Gear’, Goldstein tells readers of the relationship the protagonist shares with his mother, as well as what personality she may have, through simple descriptions and actions; ‘He walks past… where his mother sleeps in a gauzy hairnet, the covers pulled over her chin, her baby feet swathed in yellow calluses… He mutters silently at her’ (pp.97).
According to Wolfe, this creates ‘an atmosphere as rich and involving as the Joycean use of point of view’ (pp.48). It is, however, built on the assumption that these pictures trigger the reader’s memories of his or her own status life, which may, I think, be the most difficult effect to achieve within such a short body of writing. Joyce’s famous sub-conscious narrative is an incredibly extensive work, which intends to progressively absorb the reader into the protagonist’s mind-set and thus form a close understanding of the character through this textual relationship. In a piece of feature writing, usually no more than several thousand words, the journalist faces an arduous and arguably impossible task of emulating such a bond.
Clearly though, New Journalism has opened new possibilities and exciting prospects for budding writers. Ironically, many now turn to this form of literature over the staling novel, unlike those journalists working for the Sunday Supplements before the sixties arrived. Readers, the most important people to writers, seek original takes on the art form, as well as unique material. Wolfe concludes that this is due to the human mind craving constant interaction with fellow ‘status lives’ and this may be true, for as the science of anthropology has sought to prove, we each ‘develop and survive’ according to the society that we live in (pp.48).
