New Journalism

“New Journalism” refers to a literary movement in the 1960s and 1970s that tried to expand the definition of journalism by arguing that feature writers could use the same techniques to write stories about real-life events that novelists used to write about imaginary worlds. Writers like Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Gay Talese, often credited with launching this movement, immersed themselves in their subjects, at times spending months in the field gathering facts through research, interviews and observation. But when they sat down to write, they produced something very different from the feature stories typically published in newspapers and magazines of the time. Instead of forcing their story into a traditional formulaic structure and institutional voice, they constructed well-developed characters, sustained dialogue, vivid scenes, and strong plot lines marked with dramatic tension. They also wrote in a voice that was distinctly their own. Their writing style, and the time and money that their in-depth research and long stories required, did not fit the needs or budgets of most newspapers (a notable exception was the New York Herald Tribune), although the editors of Esquire, The New Yorker, New York, and other prominent magazines sought out these writers and published their work with great commercial success. Many of these writers went on to publish their stories in anthologies or to write what became known as “nonfiction novels,” and many of these works became best sellers.