Today at lunch Amanda, T.C. and I were talking about how Web journalism is encouraging people to write with more detail, context, color and humor than has been the newspaper standard in recent decades. A week or so ago, Charlise asked me if there was a place for literary journalism in the Internet world. It seems this is something people are talking about, so I thought this would make a good wiki topic. 

I do think well written stories that are interesting to read, and more than a dry accounting of the facts, do matter more now because there are so many places to get the ordinary, straight stuff.  To me this cyber-encouraged shift towards better writing that engages -- with a writer's unique voice, unexpected story turns, intriguing quotes -- is one of the exciting opportunities of this new digital media age. 

Amanda forwarded this Washington Post story as an example of what she was noticing online:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021103387.html 

An hour later I ran into a Poynter.org conversation headlined "The Future of News: The Case for Literary Journalism." It features Norman Sims author of "True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism" Go to: http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=136661.

Michelle. 2/13/08

I've been thinking more about why online readers might gravitate toward this style of writing (literary journalism, or whatever you call it). My theory is that writers who offer a more distinct point of view allow readers a better opportunity to experience the story, and (I think) more readers want this experience. We're movie/music/media addicts. We're constantly immersed in one story or another, whether on the web, through our iPods or on TV. I find that I can sometimes relate better to a story that I can experience, and journalism 2.0 is making the opportunities for this rich -- audio/video allows us to see, hear, feel the story; interactive tools/data allows us to manipulate the story; social networking allows us to contribute to the story.

Writers accomplish this, too, by going beyond cold observation and construction of fact to draw me into the story, especially with dialogue. When someone becomes more than a description and a quote, and is allowed to have a voice through dialogue, they become a character. I guess this is literary journalism. I think the Post example is interesting because many of those vignettes are made up mostly of dialogue. Instead of inserting a quote here or there to add color to a lede-all on election day voting, the writers use dialogue to establish a tone of voice, a dynamic between two people, a rich perspective on the news at hand. I felt like I could have watched those sketches play out before me on YouTube.

Amanda, 2.15.08