This lecture was based upon the new journalism and a brief history of American Journalism.
The Penny Papers in America (papers for a penny) - deeply partisan - merchants and politicians. An awaking of writing news for people who weren't highly educated. Tapping in to the regular public rather than the newspapers and articles that were written by the elite.
Mid-19th Century objectivity became a factor in journalism because of the creation of wire services. The associated Press - AP - needed objectivity to be profitable.
The (first) New Journalism - The Yellow Press - late 19th Century.
The world of William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal and Joseph Pultizer of the New York World. - Tried every trick in the book to beat each other in the circulation war. Hearst focussed on dramatic, romantic and shocking stories, he wanted you not to think, but to care.
Citizen Kane.
Shaking up the newspapers, making them far more interesting.
Sensationalisaton - huge, emotive headlines with big striking pictures - Sun on Sunday - Exclusives, dramatic stories, romantic stories, shocking stories, crime stories.
Many called Yellow Journalism the New Journalism without a soul. All the stories were about sin, sex and violence. (Yellow Journaism - frozen television - colourful, looks like TV)
America of the 1960’s and 70’s - similar to the time of Hearst and the Yellow Press. Great deal of political and social upheaval - fighting foreign wars, with even more serious military threats building overseas.
Journalists recorded the events of the day - normally in a formulaic way. Being trained in a specific way, who what when where why. Similar to the way we are trained as Journalists. New Journalism was an attempt to reflect what was happening at the time, in a much truer sense than had been done before (Tom Wolf).
Five W’s - news pyramid etc. But the New Journalism was an attempt to record events mirroring the language and the style of the events. Letting it bleed into the copy. (copy = the news story/feature)
Citizen Kane.
Shaking up the newspapers, making them far more interesting.
Sensationalisaton - huge, emotive headlines with big striking pictures - Sun on Sunday - Exclusives, dramatic stories, romantic stories, shocking stories, crime stories.
Many called Yellow Journalism the New Journalism without a soul. All the stories were about sin, sex and violence. (Yellow Journaism - frozen television - colourful, looks like TV)
America of the 1960’s and 70’s - similar to the time of Hearst and the Yellow Press. Great deal of political and social upheaval - fighting foreign wars, with even more serious military threats building overseas.
Journalists recorded the events of the day - normally in a formulaic way. Being trained in a specific way, who what when where why. Similar to the way we are trained as Journalists. New Journalism was an attempt to reflect what was happening at the time, in a much truer sense than had been done before (Tom Wolf).
Five W’s - news pyramid etc. But the New Journalism was an attempt to record events mirroring the language and the style of the events. Letting it bleed into the copy. (copy = the news story/feature)
Poltical and Cultural Scene
1960’s was particularly turbulent - great hope of JFK (people looked up to, the American Dream), destroyed in assignation in 1963, disastrous war in Vietnam - controversy of the draft - Muhammed Ali refused to be conscripted - “I aint got no quarrel with them Viet Cong”
Demographic reasons - baby boom created a powerful youth culture - baby boomers hitting their teens in the 1960’s. They turned the faces away from the war in Vietnam. A Mass generation clash. The elite were seen as old etc, the voice of radical political change was the youth.
Demographic reasons - baby boom created a powerful youth culture - baby boomers hitting their teens in the 1960’s. They turned the faces away from the war in Vietnam. A Mass generation clash. The elite were seen as old etc, the voice of radical political change was the youth.
Sexual revolution - sexual freedom, the pill, Reichian free love. The student movement - worldwide protests of 1968 - Civil rights, Black Power - use of LSD (introduced by CIA, they wanted to control the soviets) to assess altered thinking of counterculture. When women could take control of the reproductive, it’s a big deal because it taps into exestentialism, choice, freedom etc. Women could have sexual partners without being married etc, it allowed them to make their own choices and have their freedom. You could have casual sex.
The CIA basically created the need for LSD, generally it gave the young people (minorities) they weren't part of society, they were different. ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ (fight against it)
Reichian free love - (Feud says bad stuff going on in your mind and subconscious)
He was a follower of Freud but then fell out with him. He said that Freud had it wrong, you should just let it all hang it, people are unhappy because they keep things in.
Sexual revolution relates to feminism and everything that started to change for women as a whole.
Turbulent political time - Panthers, Black rights etc.
Prohibition of drugs created subcultures - Hippies, communes, collectives etc - and established much of youth culture has other - deviant.
Sexual revolution relates to feminism and everything that started to change for women as a whole.
Turbulent political time - Panthers, Black rights etc.
Prohibition of drugs created subcultures - Hippies, communes, collectives etc - and established much of youth culture has other - deviant.
Music was central - for Satre Jazz was authentic, the music of the 1960’s was a full frontal attack on the norms, drugs fueled (Doors, Beatles) and anti-establishment - protest and poltical songs, lead the movement (Bob Dylan) - with the aim to subvert and be political.
Music is a big part of existentialism. Heidegger - Authentic. Sartre thought music was Authentic. Bad faith, true and authentic life.
1960’s music was an attack on the norm.
Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not be Televised (protest song)
The real world is happening on the streets. - Existentialism
It’s saying the world happening out there get involved.
The revolution will be live - the revolution will put you in the driving seat
1960’s music was an attack on the norm.
Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not be Televised (protest song)
The real world is happening on the streets. - Existentialism
It’s saying the world happening out there get involved.
The revolution will be live - the revolution will put you in the driving seat
Influence of Existentialism
Ideas informed by Existentialism - Heidegger’s Authenticity, Sartre’s Bad Faith. Key ideas - Freedom and Choice, for example Fanon’s view of a path to freedom via accelerated choice (violence). As we have seen, for Fanon the act of violence is essentially the extreme expression of choice - choice with real, immediate impact.
Fanon took Sartre’s thought of choice one step further. We have to use violence to push to get to the point of freedom. Violence gets us there quicker.
The most crucial choice you make, is the next one.
Black Power Movement - formed by Existentialism
Malcolm X - was named that as he wanted to cut away everything from his past and did not want to be defined by his past. He agrees with Fanon that violence is the way to freedom.
Anti-establishment feeling - “there is a policeman inside your head - he must be destroyed” - began to seep into Journalism.
Journalist question whether basing stories on press releases, press conferences and official statements made by the establishment was really objective - and more importantly a true reflection of events? [Bad Faith]
new forms of journalism began to emerge.
Journalists began to focus on setting, plot, sounds, feelings, direct quotes and images, while still being as careful as before with facts. Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Normal Mailer are examples of this new breed.
How can you rely on the police, when they are shooting students, how can you rely on the CIA when they are making drugs to give to students etc. So people turned away from the establishment.
Journalists then began to get out of the office - Tom Wolfe “if your a features writer, you begin to work doubly hard, like a crime reporter trying to figure out facts.”
This alternative journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. It was also unconventional, disagreeable, disruptive, unfriendly, and anti-power structure.
Journalists then began to get out of the office - Tom Wolfe “if your a features writer, you begin to work doubly hard, like a crime reporter trying to figure out facts.”
This alternative journalism was personal and expressed an individual point of view. It was also unconventional, disagreeable, disruptive, unfriendly, and anti-power structure.
Shift in form of narration form DIEGETIC TO MIMETIC
“Telling” to “Seeing”
An example of telling can be viewed on this link: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/video/newscast/
An example of seeing: The TV Series: Mad Men
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItI0EQ9O7Gg
Marshall McLuhan’s Hot and Cool media -
Hot media: media that is very explicit about what it’s trying to tell you. Daily Echo telling you about a car crash on the M27. It gives you no choice of interpreting the information for yourself.
Cool Media: The Mad Men, ambiguous. You have to interpret the media yourself, you can see what’s happening, you’re not sure why it’s happening, you bring the meaning yourself.
An example of telling can be viewed on this link: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/video/newscast/
An example of seeing: The TV Series: Mad Men
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItI0EQ9O7Gg
Marshall McLuhan’s Hot and Cool media -
Hot media: media that is very explicit about what it’s trying to tell you. Daily Echo telling you about a car crash on the M27. It gives you no choice of interpreting the information for yourself.
Cool Media: The Mad Men, ambiguous. You have to interpret the media yourself, you can see what’s happening, you’re not sure why it’s happening, you bring the meaning yourself.
In New Journalism “Objectivity” [authority’s message] is junked in favour of subjective experience.
Most famous example - Tom Wolfe
Wolfe was a huge fan of Emile Zola - one of the greatest writers of natural realism.
Wolfe was a huge fan of Emile Zola - one of the greatest writers of natural realism.
“Zola crowned himself as the first scientific novelist, a ‘naturalist’, to use his term studying the human fauna.” - According to Wolfe
The New Journalism - essays done by a mix of people.
The New Journalism - essays done by a mix of people.
Wolfe enters into journalism first thing he notices is the status competition.
He is a very good journalist, he’s very specific and straight forward.
The competition varies though - the reporters are in the “scoop competition” - SKY - “First for Breaking News” - BBC - “updated every minute of the day”
Ambulance chasers - stories about “power and catastrophe”.
The other is the feature game - “a story that fell outside the category of hard news”. The game was hold your own in the competition until you got busy writing a novel.
“what inna namea Christ is this” - Tom Wolfe. - Dramatic shift.The Features game was changing. Trying to replicate what was happening in the real world, putting it on the page.
New articles with real, intimate dialogue.
Reporter needs to be there to see it, to collect the data first hand. Once there it is only a small step to becoming involved - another character in the scene - Gonzo Journalism - Think HST ‘The Kentucky Derby’
To get this sort of material, you need to invest a lot of time in the subjects - days, weeks, years. “Use the whole scene, extended dialogue, point of view, and interior monologue.”
New Journalism pg 46 & 47
These are the 2 most important pages about features you will ever read as a Journo.
The Journalists embraced social realism. Learned the techniques of realism from Balzac, Zola, Dickens etc.
This power is derived from four devices:
- Scene by scene construction - telling the story in scenes and not in a sheer ‘historical narrative’. Journalists needed to be at the event to witness it.
- ‘Realistic dialogue involves the reader more completely than any other single device - it also defines character more quickly and effectively than any other single device.”
- - third-person point of view - “giving the reader the feeling of being inside the characters mind.” need to interview the subject about his thoughts and emotions, along with everything is.
- The fourth device is the recording of everyday gestures, habits, manners, customs, styles of furniture, modes of behavior towards children, superiors, inferiors and other symbolic details that might exist within a scene. Symbolic of people’s status of life.
Small details gives ways in to explain what people are like.
Ultimate New Journalism piece is FEAR AND LOATHING (Hunter Thompson).. “Gonzo Journalism”
“Performance Journalism” (eg SUPERSIZE ME) Michael Moore etc
You become the story and are central to the story.
Louis Therox - Gonzo Journalism
Gonzo Journalism can often be obvious by such features as: fly on the wall, shaky footage, being authentic.
You become the story and are central to the story.
Louis Therox - Gonzo Journalism
Gonzo Journalism can often be obvious by such features as: fly on the wall, shaky footage, being authentic.
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