Talk:New Journalism
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Is there a year for the appearance of this first NJ work?
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[edit] Expansion
We really need some kind of help from an expert on this. Terribly written, overall.
[edit] Expansion
An article based on the work of one man does not constitute a genre of journalist. Rather this article seems more a way of advocating the position Wolf takes. It's really more book review and interview with article clothing on.
The topic at hand is more generally known as Literary Journalism.
- (quote) "When writers, readers, English teachers, librarians, bookstore people, editors, and reviewers discuss extended digressive narrative nonfiction these days, they're fairly likely to call it literary journalism. The previous term in circulation was Tom Wolfe's contentious "New Journalism." Coined in the rebellious mid-sixties, it was often uttered with a quizzical tone and has fallen out of use because the genre wasn't really alternative to some old journalism, and wasn't really new." (unquote)"Literary Journalism," by Mark Kramer.
This article should be renamed and expanded to get past its Tom Wolf accident. The topic, Ilterary Journalism, is a good one; some of what's said is on the right track. It needs some reworking and the right name, leaving a redirect from "new journalism." Comments? Calicocat 07:30, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Riposte
Calicocat, I think you have a valid point about genres being larger than one person, but the phrase New Journalism is an often-used designation for a particular style of writing, and Wolfe is universally acknowledged as its first practitioner. It would be a disservice to simply redirect this article to one on Literary Journalism. New Journalism is relevant in its own right, particularly in its historical context. When Wolfe wrote Kandy-Kolored it was a radical departure from the style of the time.
A more interesting question, and one that I don't have the answer to right now is, who actually bestowed the name New Journalism? Was it Wolfe himself? It's not clear from the way this article is worded if it was him or someone else.
Rudder 02:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a merge of information here into the article on Creative Nonfiction would be appropriate (Literary Journalism redirects there). I'm not sure if you can trace a history of New Journalism before Tom Wolfe - or rather, you can, but it's a bit muddy. Where does Social Realism end and Creative Nonfiction start? Is Orwell's The Road To Wigan Pier Creative Nonfiction? I think adding a merge proposal is a good idea. So that's what I've done... Liquidindian 06:03, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Where it comes from...
Wolfe is credited because he wrote an essay on the subject, which is included with an anthology of representative work by 21 authors, _The_New_Journalism. In that book, he states that he "never even liked the term."
"Seymour Krim tells me that he first heard it used in 1965 when he was editor of Nugget and Pete Hamlin called him and said he wanted to write an article called "The New Journalism" about people like Jimmy Breslin and Gay Talese. It was late in 1966 when you first started hearing people talk about "the New Journalism" in conversation."
The term was first used in 1887, but the current use (codified by Wolfe) probably started in the 1960s. The term is still used.
